Ore no Kanojo to Osananajimi ga Shuraba Sugiru

[cloudii]

Ah, no. I meant the optic of the text. I'm sure that the text wasn't as raw as it gets. Just meant that the format's now pretty likeable, IMO.

Oh yes, of course. xD Do you think you could add the formatting decisions we agreed on to the OreShura format guidelines page?

EDIT: Was havoc disregarded now? Still like it.

I want to wait for Okashira's opinion. Ideally, I want it to be something all three of us can agree on.

[cautr]

Oh yes, of course. xD Do you think you could add the formatting decisions we agreed on to the OreShura format guidelines page?

Yes, let's wait if everyone's satisfied with the format and I'll pimp up the guidelines. When we're of one mind with them, I'll start on Chapter 1, too. it's no use to do it now, then something isn't right with the formatting and I gotta go through it again, that'd be depressing. Though I'm optimistic, that it's to everyone's liking.

[Okashira]

I want to wait for Okashira's opinion. Ideally, I want it to be something all three of us can agree on.

Personally I like "battlefield" more than "hell", though I'm supposing that hell is a little bit more flexible on the phrasing?

[cautr]

Personally I like "battlefield" more than "hell", though I'm supposing that hell is a little bit more flexible on the phrasing?

I wouldn't mind battlefield, either, as it's pretty common and easy on the tongue. On the other hand: Isn't it an understatement meaning-wise? Just asking, not sure myself.

Also Okashira, are you content with the format on chapter 0? If you are, I'd follow through with it and begin with chapter 1.

[cloudii]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my best long-winded understanding of Shuraba is: "A Hellish Violent Battle" or "A Violent Battlefield Like Hell".

On the other hand, there's no way in Hell I'm going to use anything that longwinded as a translation for Shuraba.

I wouldn't mind battlefield, either, as it's pretty common and easy on the tongue. On the other hand: Isn't it an understatement meaning-wise? Just asking, not sure myself.

I don't remember if I said this before, but this is how I see it:

Battlefield best captures the literal meaning of Shuraba, but lacks in its expression of tone.

Hell Breaks Loose best captures the tone of Shuraba, but lacks in its ability to fulfill the original literal meaning.

Mayhem are Havoc are compromises between tone and literal meaning. Neither perfectly capture the literal meaning nor the tone. However, it does provide a little of both (in the spectrum, it leans closer to capturing tone). Personally, I find these two to be equivalent (boiled down, they both literally mean: "Chaos").

Carnage is also a compromise between tone and literal meaning. In my opinion, it provides a little of both, but leans closer to capturing literal meaning in the spectrum.

Whatever we pick, at this point, is most likely going to be either a loss of literal meaning, or a loss of tone (or some mixture of the two). The question is, which do you prefer? Where in the spectrum is ideal for us?

[larethian]

What I can say in response to the discussion is, the more you translate, and the better you become, the more you work with good proofers, the more you get in touch with audience needs, the less hung up you get on preserving literal meanings, unless there's an important reason to do so (like puns and stuff and dual/triple meanings, which result in footnotes being used to explain the essence of the word). The best translated text however has the least language-based footnotes. Take for example, I would normally translate Bishoujo into English (pretty girl/cutie/etc. etc.) but in Otaria, I can't do that due to special needs and the number of repeats, making it less cumbersome and more productive to make a new English word called Bishoujo

Also note that, even in Japanese, many a time, words are used figuratively/metaphorically and not literally; it will be strange to preserve literal meanings in such instances (though I myself had been ignorantly guilty of it many times, sometimes as a result of poor understanding of the author's intent ). Thankfully, I have native friends on Skype to steer me back sometimes.

As to translation choices, the more important thing is in capturing the essence of the word, the emotions and thoughts invoked from the original words, in the reader. The word, 'Shuraba', is of course debatable, so I leave it to your discretion. It's a plus/minus kind of weighing and deciding on what's more important. That's why, if possible, I always find it good to read entire series first before translating to understand overall author's intent, though some translators don't do that. These days, I don't even preserve sentence structure if it's counter-productive to the translation. I merge or split lines when necessary, though I try not to do that too much. There are times where even just retaining 50-60% meaning of a word/sentence is better than retaining 80%-90% of a word with footnotes/or strange un-English-like sentence to preserve every nuance used by the author, as a disrupted flow or unwieldy words/sentences make it even harder for a reader to understand the translator's effort in preserving the original word, making it counterproductive and unnecessary. Meaning, such preservation still ends up not getting passed to the reader and becomes pointless. I can't count the number of times I drop translating nuancical/descriptive adverbs and occasionally adjectives in long sentences (though these are rare and only in super crazy long sentences), and sometimes the unmemorable and unimportant nuance as well. Some may think that I'm being lazy, but I think I'm just being practical.

Just wanted to add my thoughts.

[cautr]

Ah, thanks for putting the image back in, that had been removed by accident.

EDIT: Regarding Popular & Cute. Isn't this some weird word in the original? I think rori TL'ed it as popucute because it's a weird merging of popular and cute and on top of that from some teenage magazine, I thought of it as quite fitting.

EDIT2: Also, if the Chiwa stuff and the Digital blabla stuff on chapter 1/0 are pre-chapters, then the QA stuff prior to #2 is also a pre-chapter which should be on #2.

EDIT3: Furthermore I need your opinion on ｢Jien Otsu｣. I'd use rori's "Society Advocating Maidenly Elegance For All Girls" or SAMEFAG. Which pretty much represents the 2chan term it's hitting on. As verb: Samefagging.

[Okashira]

EDIT: Regarding Popular & Cute. Isn't this some weird word in the original? I think rori TL'ed it as popucute because it's a weird merging of popular and cute and on top of that from some teenage magazine, I thought of it as quite fitting.

Motekawa , that's mote(ru) + kawa(ii)

EDIT3: Furthermore I need your opinion on ｢Jien Otsu｣. I'd use rori's "Society Advocating Maidenly Elegance For All Girls" or SAMEFAG. Which pretty much represents the 2chan term it's hitting on. As verb: Samefagging.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that someone translated it as samefag? It's interesting as a discusion topic, but to be honest doesn't look attactive as a practice.

- That's not a question that you ask yourself after a story has been translated for years. It's pretty much been stablished already to the regular reader that it's Jien otsu.

- Jien otsu is not merely used as a word. It's used as a concept and as a name and even to qualify actions, thus It's better to have something distintive for it.

- Oreshura exists in multiple plataforms / media, and most other translators leave Jien otsu as Jien otsu, as simple as that. Heck, a year or so ago if I would have seen "samefagging" in a chapter, I wouldn't be able to recognize what it meant in the original at first glance; is not used on the places / languages that I hang around and only learned of it by looking it up.

[cloudii]

EDIT: Regarding Popular & Cute. Isn't this some weird word in the original? I think rori TL'ed it as popucute because it's a weird merging of popular and cute and on top of that from some teenage magazine, I thought of it as quite fitting.

Can you do me a favor and locate this term? Okashira can probably deal with linguistic puns better than I can. The Chinese TL will usually glaze over it.

EDIT2: Also, if the Chiwa stuff and the Digital blabla stuff on chapter 1/0 are pre-chapters, then the QA stuff prior to #2 is also a pre-chapter which should be on #2.

They actually aren't technically pre-chapters. They're kind of like page-spreads with images on them. I'll like a few (they're in the illustrations):
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... 04-005.png Is the "pre-chapter" for C0. But you can see it's not really a pre-chapter. It's kind of like a title page that you sometimes see in manga.
http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... 01_022.png is the "pre-chapter" for C1.
http://pic.wenku8.cn/pictures/1/1073/32446/42200.jpg is the "end-of-chapter" for C1.

The QA stuff at the end of C1 is the not the pre-chapter for C2. It's not relevant to the chapter at all. It's more like an omake or bonus material that goes between chapters.

EDIT3: Furthermore I need your opinion on ｢Jien Otsu｣. I'd use rori's "Society Advocating Maidenly Elegance For All Girls" or SAMEFAG. Which pretty much represents the 2chan term it's hitting on. As verb: Samefagging.

It's very intelligent... I agree. The meaning is there.

IDK. I'll like to wait for Okashira's opinion on this too. IMO, I can't imagine anyone ever making an abbreviation for their club: SAMEFAG. It's too... obviously a 4-chan term and not as elegant as what I perceived Jien-Otsu to be. (It contains the word "same" and "fag". The second of which is a profanity which affects tone. I just can't imagine the OreShura characters nonchalantly walking around saying "fag" every time they refer to their club name. It's impossible not to notice. Jien-Otsu is several degrees more subtle.).

The characters use Jien-Otsu about 80% more frequently than they use the full name. Are you prepared to see something: "Now that SAMEFAG has been saved from being shut down, we maidens in SAMEFAG will now commence our next club activity! As my first act as president of the new SAMEFAG, we will revisit plans for a summer trip!"

IDK. ^^; It's really really really intelligent, and Rori is pretty awesome for noticing that. I'm just a tad picky. xD If you can find something like:

Society for the Advancement of Femimine Maidens = SAFM abbreviated
However, SAFM = "stay away from me".

That's the level of subtlety and nuance Jien-Otsu is at. If you can find something like that which works, then I think I might support it more. xD

[denormative]

EDIT3: Furthermore I need your opinion on ｢Jien Otsu｣. I'd use rori's "Society Advocating Maidenly Elegance For All Girls" or SAMEFAG. Which pretty much represents the 2chan term it's hitting on. As verb: Samefagging.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that someone translated it as samefag? It's interesting as a discusion topic, but to be honest doesn't look attactive as a practice.

Not to mention I have no idea what 'samefagging' means; is this a 4chan thing? (Yes, I could google it, but translating a language pun from one language, into a language pun into another language, to only have to put a footnote to explain it anyway seems somewhat counterproductive.) But yeah, it's a rather grotesque looking term IMO.

[larethian]

@denormative
SAMEFAG is something like this:

posts 1 - 231 commenting on how bad an anime is
#232 (2305:01) starts talking about awesome that anime is.
#233 (2305:06) yeah I agree
#234 (2305:11) ^ finally someone's talking sense
#235 (2305:22) I love that anime!
#236 (2306:31) WTF!? Anime is shit! Go away SAMEFAG!

-------

I'd say, don't keep quoting rori's translations. They aren't reading the novel. Or even if they are, their TL may be suitable for anime medium and the perfect choice. It's true that SAMEFAG in 4chan is almost identical to Ji-En-Otsu in 2ch. But unlike SAMEFAG, Ji-En-Otsu stands for something more than what SAMEFAG stands for (or does it even stand for anything?). While Ji-En-Otsu is Masuzu's clever adaptation of 2ch's Ji-En-Otsu, it's not used in the same context of 2ch. Did you guys see the characters posting on 2ch in the anime? It's applied to the context of what they do in the club, and also extend to how the girls are behaving.

Chiwa pretending what she's not in v1 --> Ji-En-Otsu
Hime's Chuunibyou antics --> Ji-En-Otsu
Ai's fake boyfriend --> Ji-En-Otsu
Masuzu == Ji-En-Otsu (if you understand the story, you understand this)

Ji-En-Otsu : Jisaku-Jien (self-made, self-act --> Charade) Otsukaresama (thanks (for your hard work)!! --> implies we know you are faking!)

In Japanese, you can call the contexts described above Ji-En-Otsu. But in English, can you call those SAMEFAG? *Shrug*, something to think about.

[cautr]

So popucute is alright?

That's not a question that you ask yourself after a story has been translated for years. It's pretty much been stablished already to the regular reader that it's Jien otsu.

Yes it is, as long as the TL isn't an official one. If there is an official TL that's using that, all the better.

Jien otsu is not merely used as a word. It's used as a concept and as a name and even to qualify actions, thus It's better to have something distintive for it.

Well, same goes for samefag. It's harder on the ears, though, as fag is a bad word.

Oreshura exists in multiple plataforms / media, and most other translators leave Jien otsu as Jien otsu, as simple as that. Heck, a year or so ago if I would have seen "samefagging" in a chapter, I wouldn't be able to recognize what it meant in the original at first glance; is not used on the places / languages that I hang around and only learned of it by looking it up.

A year or so ago, the regular reader wouldn't have known what Jien Otsu is. I think that's the trick on that pun, you don't recognize right away what's going on.

They actually aren't technically pre-chapters. They're kind of like page-spreads with images on them. I'll like a few (they're in the illustrations):

Yes, I'm aware of that. The name wasn't important, we could call it "Pre-Chapter-Extra" or whatever. I just meant it's positioning at the end of the chapters. That looked wrong to me.

IDK. I'll like to wait for Okashira's opinion on this too. IMO, I can't imagine anyone ever making an abbreviation for their club: SAMEFAG. It's too... obviously a 4-chan term and not as elegant as what I perceived Jien-Otsu to be. (It contains the word "same" and "fag". The second of which is a profanity which affects tone. I just can't imagine the OreShura characters nonchalantly walking around saying "fag" every time they refer to their club name. It's impossible not to notice. Jien-Otsu is several degrees more subtle.).

That's true. It's badmouthing in the end, unless you play with the pronunciation, which is pretty much impossible on the text without destroying the meaning

Society for the Advancement of Femimine Maidens = SAFM abbreviated
However, SAFM = "stay away from me".

As the footnote said, it's a term which originated from 2ch. So I don't think anything but the English equivalent from 4chan would make more sense on the pun. One of the pros on it is that it is a term from some dark place on the internet, which shouldn't be known by some classy lady like she claims to be.

Not to mention I have no idea what 'samefagging' means; is this a 4chan thing? (Yes, I could google it, but translating a language pun from one language, into a language pun into another language, to only have to put a footnote to explain it anyway seems somewhat counterproductive.) But yeah, it's a rather grotesque looking term IMO.

The English reader has no Idea what Jien Otsu means, it ends up with a footnote either way. And yes, it's pretty much grotesque looking and like cloud said even sounding. But it's pretty much the only way to put it into English without destroying it's meaning.

Also, like cloud or denormative, I'd like to keep discussions on terms and the like classy. So please refrain from aggressive argumentations. I just made a suggestion and see the points why it wouldn't work so well. Everything's fine (I guess).

But as I said, I'll leave it at that and it's alright. I won't go into that any deeper, 'cause it's gettin' too aggressive IMO.

[larethian]

Jien otsu is not merely used as a word. It's used as a concept and as a name and even to qualify actions, thus It's better to have something distintive for it.

Well, same goes for samefag. It's harder on the ears, though, as fag is a bad word.

Nope. SAMEFAG is more limited and I can only see it being applied to 4chan boards, since it means same fag, unlike Ji-En-Otsu.

EDIT: If you consider the number of times Eita goes "masa ni Ji-En-Otsu ka yo!!", and you use SAMEFAG to replace it, it will make people go "what?"

[cloudii]

Conclusion: We are using Jien-Otsu. Discussion closed.

I also wanted to mention I'd like to start utilizing chapter talk pages for discussing ambiguities specific to a certain chapter.

We can continue using the forum thread to discuss series-wide formatting and general terminology. Theoretically, this is supposed to be a feedback thread for readers, too. xD


The next thing on our agenda: What is our resolution for the Title/Shuraba?

Here is my stance: I will not accept "Hell" as a generic translation for Shuraba ("Hell Breaks Loose" works fine for the title, but all together it's too bulky to handle). I also never really favored to literal translations (Battlefield, etc).

I personally never found a huge problem with using Mayhem. Maybe because I'm so used to it. xD I found it equivalent to Carnage/Havoc/Chaos/etc. "Mayhem" has been used long enough that BT readers have become used to it. If you stalk the forums for other Shuraba related series, people casually mention "mayhem" whenever Shuraba is on the stage. This is probably because of Lare-tan's influence from his initial translation... 3 years ago xD

Might I also comment that Mayhem has a lighter, "sillier" connotation than Carnage (or Havoc, etc). In English, we can say: "When the frog escaped from the bride's dress, mayhem erupted." We wouldn't say, "When the frog escaped from the bride's dress, carnage erupted." From my experience with the word mayhem, it's nearly always been used as a synonym for chaos, even though the technical definition is:

• actions that hurt people and destroy things : a scene or situation that involves a lot of violence
• needless or willful damage or violence

Culturally, Mayhem has become many degrees less violent than the technical english definition (even though a tinge of violence pesists). We now get things like Monday Night Mayhem, Creating Culture from Mayhem, Literary Mayhem (Mayhem can also mean: lots and lots and lots). I know Cautr said he originally didn't like the flow of the word "Mayhem" in English, I would disagree. Mayhem isn't used frequently in regular conversation, but authors/poets/TVshows use it abundantly in titles and poems because it is elegant at a level more than conversation. It also works very well in poetry, and is very flexible. You can tack Mayhem onto the end of practically anything, and it'll work.

tldr;

I think "mayhem" suits the mood of OreShura as a RomCom. But it isn't necessarily the best meaning-preserving translation of Shuraba altogether. However, I think it's an excellent example of a violent word being toned down to something comedic.

I don't care as much if we change mayhem-->carnage-->havoc or whatever (they mean close to the same thing, but nothing can capture "Shuraba" perfectly). Take your pick. If both of you (mainly Okashira and cautr) can agree on something else you prefer, I will go along with it. However, the last thing to consider is how this will affect the readership and people who are used to mayhem and so forth. I'd prefer not to turn Mayhem --> Chaos if our reason is that we don't like the ring of Mayhem as much. It just makes readers uneasy when we switch key terms like that on whim.

I can understand wanting to change mayhem --> carnage, because they mean different things. Carnage is in fact more literally accurate, but you lose the slight sense of something comedic. But that's accurately accurate in terms of forcing the reader to recognize that Shuraba does have an insinuation on violence. The regular reader might otherwise find "carnage" weird (because there isn't really violence in OreShura), but if we want the reader to know violence WAS SUPPOSED TO BE INVOLVED BUT WASN'T, then carnage would be the way to go even if it appears out of place.

You'll have to make more of an argument for wanting to change mayhem --> chaos, or synonyms like that.

[cautr]

Instead of the <span> styling you use for the boyfriend/fake stuff, you could also use the Furigana Function.

Example: {{Furigana|boyfriend|Fake}}

Also works with more words. This might make things easier for you. If you want to replace the span styling with this code, please do it yourself. It's not much effort and you know better which words there are with those double-meanings.

In case it doesn't work out for whatever reason, then not. Just a suggestion.