Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume7 Prologue

References & Translator's Notes

Kirlian photograph

A 'photograph' created by exposing a photographic plate to an electric field instead of light. The electrical properties of the subject being photographed generates a unique electrical field around it, creating an "aura" around it.

Pochibukuro

In Japan, it is a New Year’s custom to give small amounts of money to children in decorative envelopes called ‘pochibukuro’.

Fukuwarai and Sugoroku

Fukuwari and Sugoroku are the games the group played while on the trip to Snow Mountain in the story Where did the cat go?

Spring Setsubun

Setsubun and Risshun is the eve of and the first day of a season, respectively. In this case, the season is springtime. The novel uses the kanji 節分 (せつぶん - "Setsubun") here, which is specifically a holiday for end of winter (Bean Throwing Night).

Rolled Sushi

The word used in the novel is "ehoumaki." (Can someone please expand this? It seems this word has a special meaning associated with the occasion, but I'm not clear what it is.) (I'm trying to confirm this in word from the scans... -Smidge)(This is discussed in the Setsubun wiki, it is not rolled sushi - but "Lucky Direction Roll Sushi", it's named this because it is rolled in the direction of the Zodiac sign of the time of year.)

Bernoulli lemniscate

Latin for "a pendant ribbon", a polar curve whose most common form is the locus of points the product of whose distances from two fixed points documented by Bernouli in 1694.

Fuku wa uchi

The second half of the phrase "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" (鬼は外! 福は内! - "Demons out! Luck in!") which is traditionally yelled while throwing the soy beans during Setsubun. Only the second half ("Luck In") is said because Haruhi wanted to be nice to the demons.

Naita Akaoni

Naita Akaoni is a children's story about two kind demons, a Red and Blue demon, who wish to be friends with the humans, who are always running away from them.

Discussion

"Hoping time will reverse."

Here, I'm hoping that time will reverse. I have no clue what Haruhi is planning, since I need to come to terms with my own situation first. Starting to reminisce about the past year in February is a bit early, but since what I have to say is not unsayable, I might as well tell it enthusiastically and completely.

Is "reverse" the correct word here? The intent here isn't for time to flow backwards. It's more like Kyon wants to hit the "Pause" button and step out of "real" time while assimilating recent events, which involves rewinding the tape of the previous month and playing it forward. I can see the use of "reverse" here as a way to get accross the correct concept without it being literally accurate, but i can also see it as a placeholder in translation of a confusing passage.--Nutcase 06:47, 19 February 2007 (PST)

"the wrong amount to set off"

I think I know what Nagato wants to say. I had told Asahina-san that it was because Nagato had let the wrong amount to set off, so the world changed on December the eighteenth.

This sentence doesn't seem right. Can anyone please confirm the translation?

Well, Kyon told Mikuru Yuki had put too much data into it and caused the world to change. Maybe change it to Nagato had (exploded) too much data? ~~BaKaFiSh

I have taken some liberties here, putting in "set things in motion" as capturing the sense in idiomatic English. Could make it "caused the wrong current state to be entered" to stay closer to BaKaFiSh's translation. This contacts the notion of the universe-as-computer more clearly. Yeah, that's better, gonna change it.

"I'll give you something to see"

The movie I was watching gradually disappeared. Has the service been cut? I'll give you something to see. Like during my three-day long memory loss, it's a brigade leader's responsibility to worry about the members, that's the way it is, Haruhi.

This paragraph seems a bit confused. Can anyone please confirm the translation?

maybe 'think about' instead of 'see' would make more sense... ~~BaKaFiSh

http://www2.gol.com/users/stever/setsubun.htm

I read this as Kyon is talking to himself, and the thing that he clings to in the timeless, placeless void is Haruhi's concern for him. The 'you' being himself is the slippery point here, so if anything, I'd make it. "I'll give you something to see, Kyon."--Nutcase 07:56, 5 February 2007 (PST)

Lucky Daughters

Perhaps this is a reference to Toshi Otoko (the person/people who would throw the beans in such a ritual)?

"Box."

When we first started, the students down below didn't know what was going on, and ran around like a group of insects not wanting to die. But before a minute had passed, the guys had come back in twos and threes and started to fight for the beans Asahina-san and Nagato were throwing down just like it was for money. They generally avoided the beans that Haruhi and her strong arms were firing off, considering it was kind of like the beans were fired out of a gun. For this, they moved in unison, going left and right at the same time.

"Box."(<--makes no sense.)

Haruhi then said, lamenting,

"Box" as in "Pass a box of ammo?" or as in "Stand and fight?" What kind of box? Smidge?--Nutcase 17:15, 19 February 2007 (PST)

Okay, on this pass, I'm taking it to mean "Stand and fight!" It fits in the context. I've made the edit. If nobody says this is a mistake, I'll delete this section in a while.--Nutcase 15:31, 4 March 2007 (PST)

The original text says "しまったわ" (Shimatta wa). "Shimatta" is a mild explitive ("Damn it!") so I would translate this outburst as either "Damn it!" or "Damn you!" Smidge204 16:15, 4 March 2007 (PST)

The current Stand and Fight makes as little sense as the original Box, given that she's lamenting. Damn. would seem to fit better than either of Smidges' suggestions, as they seem too aggressive.

BTW, why was Box used in the first place?

JBV^_^

Koizumi's time diagram discussion

I'm not a translator...just a reader commenting on the story.

I'm sure you didn't mistranslated Koizumi's time loop explanation or least Kyon's interpretation of the left loop ("The left loop was the time I missed. It was the time from when I lost consciousness after being stabbed up to when I woke up in the hospital. Those three days were this loop.").

But when I tried to do it myself (yes I have lots of free time :p), I got a different diagram, so I think the author got it wrong or something:

If you look at the linked diagram, the right loop in Koizumi's diagram would be 3->4->1->3 in my diagram (which correspond to the events in Disappearance of Suzumiya Haruhi), and his left loop would 3->5->3 in mine (which correspond to the 3 days b/w the stairwell accident and Kyon waking up from his coma). But notice how there is no 5->3 in my diagram. Instead the left loop should be 6->3->5->6.

If you look at the diagram, you'll also see what Koizumi was talking about when he said "The memory we have but you don't have...... when you fell down the stairs on the eighteenth, to your awakening on the twenty-first, three days later, maybe it never existed." This involves deleting the line segment 3->5, and merging 4 and 5 into a single point that would describe 2 things: Kyon pressing the <Enter> key to travel to the past again; and the alternate timeline morphing back to the original timeline, where the memories of the deleted 3->5 segment are fake.

--Maian 10:07, 5 April 2007 (PDT)

I think koizumi's drawing was much simpler from the one you did, probably something like this[1], having in mind only the time from 3 to 5 and from 3 to 4.

"mass"

Falling heads over heels and revolving in a no-gravity zone is something I have experienced many times before. Even though I think I'm used to these sensations, this time is vastly different from all the other times. If all the other times were like riding a roller-coaster in an amusement park, this is a noisy, anarchic space shuttle I'm randomly flying about in without a seat belt. But, since my body has no mass, it is actually not being twirled around.

Mass is the amount of matter an object has while weight is the force due gravity. With or without gravity, the amount of mass an object has doesn't change. Hence, even if Kyon, encounters something in a no-gravity zone, his mass will not change. To cut the story short, it should not be mass which is used here, it should be weight.

--jedlionheart March, 2008

Closed Discussion Items

The following discussion items ahve been resolved in some form or another...

Snow Mountain Syndrome reference

For uniformity, I decided to reference the location of the Snow Moutnain Syndrome storyline as a "mysterious mansion on the mountain" - this seems to adequately describe it without spoiling the actual story. To differentiate, the other location in that story is referred to as a villa.

doesn't fit SOS

'シズン毎にオンタイムな行事をしめやかに実行する組織'(literally something like Organization that respectfully holds events appropriate to the season....but that doesn't fit SOS)

Maybe something along the lines of "Specially Observing all events approriate to the Season"?

/kaoSFell

yeah, there's a forum topic on it now~ http://www.baka-tsuki.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=563 ~~BaKaFiSh

Bernoulli line

I think they meant the lemniscate. See http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Curves/Lemniscate.html.

I agree, it definitely matches up with Koizumi's drawing. (Also http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Lemniscate.html)

Cleaning bin?

The last line of the prologue, you used the phrase "cleaning bin" of the literature club room. I'm sorry if I sound rude, but shouldn't it be utility closet? At least that's what I translated in Melancholy of Mikuru and Chapter 1. Since they're refering to the same object, I think we better standardize things a bit. Cleaning bin or utility closet? XD --HolyCow 22:16, 2 December 2006 (PST)

Cleaning Bin sounds like a trash can. When I first read that line I thought, "Who's hiding in the trash can?". A utility/broom closet makes a lot more sense. I'll make that change when I revew the rest of the prologue later today. Smidge204 04:56, 3 December 2006 (PST)

I thought the same :) DarkoNeko talk 05:22, 3 December 2006 (PST)

Sure, =P, I just put cleaning bin because that's how I store all my cleaning crap...I shove it into a bin in the closet downstairs...=P...I guess that would make more sense... ~~BaKaFiSh

New Year has has!

New Years has come and gone, and we left the troublesome old year behind almost a month ago. If time seems to have flown by, it's probably because you've kept yourself busy doing a lot of New Years related things during that first month.

A I've stated in the inline comment I made, the first New Years should really be New Year's, but that makes the first sentence New Year has has. The reason it shouldn't be years being that the first New Year refers to the current new year and hence should be singular, not plural.

The second should really be singular too, but it could be argued that it refers to things that are performed every year, hence can be left as a plural.

JBV^_^