I will not be translating Oregairu any more.

Despite the date on this post, this is not an April Fool’s joke!

Oregairu volume 4 is complete, just in time for the second season of the anime. You can read the volume here. I mentioned well in advance that I would step down as the Oregairu translator after volume 4, and now here we are. There will be no more updates on the series at Nano Desu. The good news is that you can read the rest of the series at Kyakka.

Final thoughts about the series below:

Overall, Oregairu was a very fun yet very challenging series to translate. I’ve already written about my translation approach, so it doesn’t feel like I have much else to say. I hope that my translations feel like a distinctive work of literature and that Hikigaya Hachiman’s voice comes through.

The series was full of ups and downs for me. I found myself really frustrated by the rambling conversations and endless pop culture references at times. But every once in a while, Watari’s prose was really breathtaking. I think my favourite scene to translate in the entire novel was the conversation between Yukino and Hachiman in Volume 4, Chapter 5-3. In particular, I loved these lines:

She would not answer the question I never asked. That was how the silence between us was born.

–

I figured we’d be better off not knowing too much about each other, maintaining a comfortable relationship of our own fabrication.

I’m a bit disappointed that I’ll never translate the later volumes, where the emotional highlights are even stronger, but that’s a time commitment I’m unwilling to take.

In any case, I’m happy with my contribution to the fandom. Between Nano Desu and Kyakka, all the volumes now have a fan translation. Oregairu is one of my favourite anime series, and translating the light novel helped me appreciate the characters even more. With the anime starting in a matter of days, I doubt Oregairu will fade quickly from memory.

Looking back, Oregairu was really influential to me as a writer. As I was translating the light novel, I read deeply into the themes and characters like I had never done before. My mind started to wander; I was seized with a desire to create my own art. That urge culminated in this fanfic, which turned out to be pretty controversial among Oregairu readers because of its dark subject matter and unconventional narrative. But I’d say it’s the most truthful thing I’ve ever written.

So yeah, while I’ll miss translating Oregairu, I feel pretty satisfied with what I’ve gotten out of the series. I look forward to setting my sights on broader horizons!

And by broader horizons, I mean the Aldnoah.Zero novel.

Yes, after that spectacularly shitty ending of season 2, I decided I really wanted to translate the extra novel which is all about Inaho. In addition, my editor has admitted to me that he hates Aldnoah.Zero with a fiery passion. What could possibly go wrong?

It’s a short novel, so I’m finishing it off quickly before resuming work on Qualidea. But in any case, I bring you previews of both novels. Behold!

Kuzu to Kinka no Qualidea

Aldnoah Zero Extra Episode

You can also access the previews on the Nano Desu forums, but you’ll need an account. I do recommend you check it out, though, since there’s a lot of interesting content on the forums.

The Aldnoah.Zero novel also comes with a manga and a drama CD, so I guess I will translate those too down the line. The manga is about Slaine’s backstory (he gets kicked!), while the drama CD is an alternate universe story where Slaine is a transfer student at Inaho’s school. GET HYPED.

Even if you aren’t a big fan of A/Z, I really hope you’ll find the extra novel interesting. It’s mostly worldbuilding and backstory, not ridiculous plot twists.

(As a random note, the A/Z novel contains big words like “interplanetary war” and “gravity wave-induced crustal deformation”. It also has no furigana to speak of. And yet I still found it way easier to translate than Oregairu and Qualidea. Watari’s prose is difficult ;____;)

Anyway, that’s all for now, folks! I hope you continue to read and enjoy my translations even in my post-Oregairu days.

And finally, happy April Fool’s Day from the future!

Pretty good stuff. First episode of Oregairu S2 covered the first six chapters of volume 7. Judging by the preview at the end of the episode, episode 2 will cover the rest of the volume.

I doubt I’ll be blogging about every episode, so I’ll just post some brief thoughts about this episode and the adaptation in general.

As I hoped, the anime skipped a lot of scenes in the LN. Don’t listen to the LN readers complaining about the cut scenes. Some of them are amusing, but they are still utterly irrelevant. Including them would have made the anime feel much more tedious, because despite the art upgrade, most of the episode consisted of talking heads. The missing ramen scene felt blatant, though. (SEE END OF POST FOR A TRANSLATION.) Otherwise, good job, series composition dude (Shotaro Suga, fyi).

I think that in general the anime is superior to the LN. I spent over half a year translating the LNs, and at this point I feel like I know them inside out. There is a lot of superfluous crap in the LNs. The anime took what was great about the LNs and made it shine.

The intra-episode pacing in the anime really works. The episode builds two stories simultaneously: Tobe’s quest for Hina’s love, which serves as a comedic foil to the more understated story of Hachiman and Yukino’s relationship after the school festival arc. Every scene in the episode builds up to that strained moment at the ending, where Hachiman and Yukino awkwardly part ways, realising perhaps for the first time that they have become too close for comfort. The school trip is a time for romance – well, at least in anime it is. In his awareness of this, Tobe actively tries to become close to Hina, while Hachiman and Yukino retreat from each other yet again.

As amusing as the cut scenes from the LN are, they would have detracted from the main focus of the episode. I’m not looking for a page-by-page adaptation from Oregairu Zoku. I’m just looking for a good story. If you want the behind-the-scenes stuff, you can read the LN later.

Still, the anime’s habit of cutting stuff did come back to bite them in the bum later when it referenced the scene where Tobe first admitted that he likes Hina. I do recommend you read this scene in full because it contains important foreshadowing for this episode and later events (translation here).

Speaking of translations, Commie’s translation of this episode was pretty snappy for the most part. I really like how they translated Tobe’s slang. Still, be warned that the script is not entirely accurate to the Japanese. As much as I prefer liberal translations that capture the intent of the original over stiff, literal translations, this scene in particular struck me as flat out wrong:

What is a ‘subottom’ even supposed to mean? A sasoiuke is supposed to be an uke character that “invites” the seme to “attack” him. You could work this out from context, but in any case Hina doesn’t talk very much like an authentic fujoshi in their translation of this scene.

Man, I know that most fansub groups are sausage fests, but Commie really needs to brush up on their fujoshi slang :P

There were other lines I would personally have translated differently, but I honestly don’t mind Commie’s overall approach.

(EDIT: FFF has a better translation of this particular scene, though still a bit awkward.)

tldr; I approve of the principles behind the adaptation and the translation. Don’t take the purists too seriously.

Miscellaneous Observations

Get your friendzone bullshit outta here, 8man

DOKI INTENSIFIES

Hayama best guy. You heard it from me first. I feel like Hina is channelling me at this moment

In conclusion, the new Oregairu anime is good. I’m kinda burnt out on the series after working on it for so long, so I probably won’t cover each episode unless you guys really want me to. I’m still as big a fan of this series as ever, though!

(Also, not to blow my own horn or anything, but draggle had the best opinions about this episode.)

Addendum: The Ramen Scene

Here is a fresh translation of the ramen scene – or, to be more precise, the conversation afterwards between Hiratsuka-sensei and her students that was severely cut down in the anime.

“I question whether a teacher should be doing this.”

Hiratsuka-sensei remained calm despite my words. “Of course not. That’s why I’m paying for your silence.”

“Isn’t that even less appropriate for a teacher…?” Yukinoshita said dubiously.

But Ms. Hiratsuka went on eating, unperturbed. In fact, she seemed more at ease than ever.

“Teachers are human too. The same goes for all adults. We make mistakes. Whether we realise it or not.”

“Won’t you get reprimanded if you’re caught?”

If that happened, I’d probably get dragged into it as well, though.

“Not in the least. They’d just call me in as a formal measure and let me off with a slap on the wrist.”

“I wonder if that can really be considered reprimanding…” Yukinoshita said. I couldn’t help but agree with her.

Hiratsuka-sensei drained the remaining soup in her bowl and wiped her mouth neatly with a napkin. With that, she turned to face us.

“It’s different. Being ordered not to create problems and being asked to fix them are completely different things.”

“I don’t see how,” I said.

“…indeed. I wonder if it’s because I’ve never been reprimanded.” Yukinoshita pressed her lightly clenched fingers against her chin, deep in recollection.

Hiratsuka-sensei watched her do all of this and nodded solemnly. “I see, then I won’t let you off easy. I was planning to scold you quite thoroughly but it looks like I was being too soft.”

“No, that’s quite all right.” I waved my hands in polite refusal. If she inflicted any more damage on my body, I’d become damaged goods, and then she’d have to woman up and take me for a groom. Huh, not a bad idea…

As I agonised over various things, Yukinoshita sat nonplussed beside me. “I don’t mind. I’ve never really done anything worth being scolded over.”

“Yukinoshita, being scolded isn’t a bad thing. It’s proof that someone’s watching out for you.”

Yukinoshita’s shoulders dropped slightly upon hearing Hiratsuka-sensei’s words. She lowered her head and cast her eyes down. She seemed to be fixated on the floor for no reason I was aware of.

Gently, Hiratsuka-sensei patted Yukinoshita on the shoulder.

“I’m watching out for you, so make as many mistakes as you like.”

My Second Season of Oregairu was Great as Expected, amirite?

Confession time: I still haven’t finished the Oregairu Zoku anime. I do, however, know what happens. The burnout I experienced after spending months translating the light novels prevented me from enjoying the anime on its own terms, so I’ll watch it later when the fuss has died down.

I did enjoy the various lively discussions I had with others about Oregairu throughout its run, though. I think it’s a testament to how well-realised the characters are that viewers inevitably brought their biographies to the discussion. “I was a former Hikki” was a common refrain, especially among fans no longer in high school.

This sequel has resonated particularly with twenty-something-year-olds. It’s no surprise, really – the author Wataru Watari is in his twenties and the later volumes of the light novel are written with a tone of wistful introspection. I get the feeling that Oregairu‘s theme of “we never stop growing up” speaks to those mature enough to be aware that they need to change for the better but still insecure enough to wonder where they are going.

Through Oregairu, I feel as if I got to know the anime blogging/Twitter circle a bit better than I knew it before. In truth, most of the people who write anime criticism are very young in the scheme of things. I would say that early-to-mid twenties is the average age range. They’re pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the fandom, if the IARP fandom survey results are to be believed. Perhaps the only thing that separates “fan” from “critic” in this context is a willingness to analyse themes deeply, but even then, that’s a nebulous distinction.

This was especially the case with Oregairu, where the themes are so personal that oftentimes it was difficult for me to tell where someone’s thematic analysis ended and self-projection began. Now, I’m not a fan of “objective critique” – that is, the attempt to separate personal experience from critical analysis, but I do find myself wondering how a generally older fandom would have approached this material. Would they have reacted so viscerally to the themes? Or would they have focused more on the way those themes are expressed?

After all, it is not as if Oregairu is telling a particularly unique story. Literature is dotted with stories about loneliness and the perpetual struggle for genuine human connection. Only a few months ago, I wrote about Natsume Souseki’s Kokoro, and if I have to be perfectly honest, I think it’s a more profound work than Oregairu is. At the same time, Oregairu speaks to its young, anime-savvy audience in a way that the literary classics don’t.

Perhaps Oregairu is one of those stories that managed to say the right thing to the right people at the right time. It especially stands out in a market saturated with teenage power fantasies. Oregairu had to speak the language of otaku romcoms in order to communicate with its audience, but I’m glad it made the effort to reach out. That’s way more valuable than literary merit alone.

In the end, it really is a good thing that the series has encouraged so much frank discussion and genuine introspection from its viewers. Even if I didn’t enjoy the series itself, I would have been glad that it exists. I learned a lot about those around me just from talking about Oregairu with them. (On that note, here’s a shout-out to Guy who wrote consistently thorough and thoughtful posts about the series every week.)

So what about me? What does Oregairu mean to me? It’s difficult to encapsulate in words, but two quotes come to mind.

The first is by Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

The other quote is something I wrote in a fanfiction. Readers told me that the story was depressing (and there are things I would change about it if I wrote it today), but I don’t think its outlook was pessimistic. It reflected my own understanding of Oregairu’s themes – that we are good people at heart, forever works in progress. One line, at least, felt important to me when I wrote it:

“Even if it is impossible to truly change, you must always continue to try.”

HO-LY CRAP.

Yes, it has been nine years to this day since I made an account on FanFiction.net. My account is now as old as the average fanfiction writer. Clearly, I must have been feeling patriotic if I chose to make my fanfiction account on the fourth of July. (Yes, yes, the post says it’s the 5th of July, but I’m writing this from the future or at least GMT+10.) Let’s also momentarily disregard the fact that I am an Australian and that my country voted against becoming a republic.

All jokes aside, I feel a weird sort of nostalgia for my fanfiction gig. For me, it’s basically the same thing as writing blog posts or translations. It’s a form of creative fan writing, that’s it. Fanfiction might have a worse reputation, but it’s an art form like any other. If my writing sucks, it has nothing to do with the medium and everything to do with my skill.

Technically, I retired from fanfiction in 2013. I left because fanfic culture is insular as hell and I wanted to try new things. But occasionally, I still get that itch to write fanfiction, because there are some ideas and emotions that are best expressed through fiction.

Here are my user stats for anyone who cares:

Bear in mind that over the years I deleted some stories because they were so abominable. Who knows how high the real word count is?

Also, here is the full list of fandoms I have written for: Chrono Trigger, Inuyasha, Bible, Ranma, Naruto, Prince of Tennis, Evangelion, Professor Layton, Code Geass, Golden Sun, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, World Ends With You, Hunter X Hunter, Tales of Symphonia, Tsubasa Chronicle, Hikaru no Go, Gundam Seed, Eureka Seven, Kuroshitsuji, Card Captor Sakura, Tales of Graces, Legend of Zelda, Chihayafuru, Kimi to Boku, Kuroko no Basuke, Kimi ni Todoke, Haruhi Suzumiya series, Hyouka, Sket Dance, Sword Art Online, AnoHana, My Little Monster, Special A, Fullmetal Alchemist, Pet Girl of Sakurasou, My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute, Barakamon, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Aldnoah Zero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Durarara!!

…Yeah, I was pretty busy there for those last nine years.

A Short List of Noteworthy Fanfiction

For reasons I still can’t entirely fathom, my stories were most popular with the SAO fandom. My most popular story overall was Double-Edged Sword, a “what if” story where Kirito is the damsel in distress. You can tell it was a NaNoWriMo novel because two of the battles last for three entire chapters each.

My two Suguha-centric oneshots, Game Over and Reset, were also popular. Reset was about Suguha pining for her oniichan’s dick, while Game Over dealt with the heavier theme of euthanasia. Neither makes for feel-good reading, I must admit.

The other fandom I found mild success in was Kurobasu. The Legend of Kuroman was a series of humorous sketches, featuring a running gag about Kuroko being a superhero who saves the world from the shadows. My personal favourite was Equilibrium in Vertigo, which serves as a (non-canon) prequel to the anime series proper. The story was about Aomine and Momoi’s strained friendship and was as accurate a depiction of the confusions of adolescence as I could muster.

My most “literary” fanfiction is The End of the Affair, which I have mentioned a couple of times already on this blog. It was also my most polarising work of fiction to date, in that it made people on Anime Suki mad. One reviewer described it as “if Urobuchi wrote a rom-com”, which never fails to make me laugh. I also thought it was amusing when someone on Reddit called it “a fanfic for yukino shippers“.

Looking back, the foundations of The End of the Affair lie in an earlier fic: Tatsuta River (Chihayafuru). The story is bleaker and the prose is less refined, but it deals with similar themes. There’s also The Colorless Green (Sakurasou), which is an adult future fic as well, but miraculously doesn’t end with suffering.

Finally, there’s my most recent story Knight and Princess (Aldnoah Zero), which is still an ongoing work of feminist propaganda.

My advice to aspiring fanfiction writers? Read widely and try to write outside your comfort zone. Also, read reviews and criticism, not just about fanfiction but about the series that you are writing about. Bonus points if you write your own criticism as well.

Shipping is not everything. If you like romance, go ahead and write it, but don’t feel the need to base your story around pairings simply because everyone else is doing it.

Being “in-character” is not everything. A strong author’s voice is far more important. If you want to find out if your characterisation is consistent, you should show your story to someone who is unfamiliar with the fandom you are writing about. If they can grasp the overall tone of your story and the personalities of the characters, then you’ve succeeded in writing “in-character” in the way that matters.

Plan your shit. You don’t have to write a step-by-step outline or multiple appendices, but at least have an idea of what you’re doing and how you’re going to get there.

Mary Sue litmus tests are full of crap. Badly written original characters usually piss readers off because everyone else in the story acts inconsistently. Focus on internal consistency and believable relationships between the characters and I guarantee that none (or barely any) of your original character’s surface traits will make them seem “Mary Sue-ish”.

And finally, remember that your OTP is shit. I mean it. If you can’t imagine your OTP not being together, it’s a shit OTP. People are individuals with complex desires before they are one half of a couple. Try to understand the people you write about. Try to empathise.

You’ve probably already heard this news, but here it is again: The Oregairu LN has been licensed by Yen Press.

This is not necessarily happy news for everyone, hence the graphic at the top of this post. Not everyone will have access to the official release when it is eventually published in 2016. There are fans who are very upset over this. Just take a visit to Kyakka if you want see evidence of this for yourself.

Here’s the official statement we released on the Nano Desu Oregairu site:

Today, we have some momentous news! Oregairu has been licensed by Yen Press!

Here at Nano Desu, we support the official release one hundred per cent and we recommend that you buy it when it becomes available.

So what does that mean for the fan translation project here? Because the official translation won’t be released until 2016, we have still not worked out what will happen over the next few months. It is also in our interest to keep translations accessible for those who may not have access to official releases, so we are trying our best to work through this matter.

Please stay tuned for further updates in the weeks to come.

If that statement sounds vague, that’s because it’s supposed to sound that way. There’s been a lot of talk behind the scenes at Nano Desu, and not all of us agree about what to do. We’re not taking down the content from the site right away, but in all likelihood we will take down the translations before the first volume is released officially. Whatever happens, I will keep you posted on both blogs.

As for my personal reaction to the licensing? As long as Yen Press’s release is nothing like the abomination that was the No Game No Life translation, I’m all for it. I look forward to purchasing the professional translation and seeing where I can learn from it. I particularly wonder how the cultural references and Hachiman’s “voice” will come across in their version.

(There’s an elephant in the room here, and that elephant is called ETHICS IN LIGHT NOVEL TRANSLATION. There’s an interesting conversation to be had here about Yen Press’s conservative business model and the limitations of intellectual property laws in the digital era. But that’s a post for another day.)

In other news, I have started working on Qualidea seriously, so expect a release very soon!

In other other news, who else is watching Wimbledon?

As I mentioned two weeks ago, Yen Press has licensed the Oregairu light novel. I promised to keep you updated on the fan translation project, so here’s the official announcement from the website:

I have written this post to confirm that, yes, we are taking down all the material from this site, as per Nano Desu policy. The unrelease schedule is as follows:

8/15 – Volume 1 will be taken down, including the ePub/PDF
9/15 – Volumes 2-4 ePubs/PDFs will be taken down
10/15 – Volumes 2-4 text will be taken down

Apologies for the late announcement. We reached out to Yen Press in an attempt to have some input on the terminology/translation conventions in the official release. We were unable to come to any agreement, however. In any case, we at Nano Desu support the Yen Press release, and we sincerely hope that you purchase the light novel when it becomes available.

In any case, it’s been a lot of fun translating Oregairu. I feel that I learned a lot as a translator from working on that series and I don’t regret any of the time I spent on it. In the meantime, I’ve started another translation project: Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin. I sincerely hope you check it out!

P.S. It should go without saying that we do not approve of piracy. Please do not distribute our translations past the removal date. Any comments containing download links will be deleted.

So, uh, yeah, as you can imagine, there’s a story behind that whole “we contacted Yen Press” subplot. It would have been nice to have some influence on the official translation, if only for consistency’s sake, but it’s understandable that an official publishing company would reject any affiliation with a fan translation group. They would only have agreed to a collaboration if our group took down every translation, even the series not licensed by any English-speaking distribution company (which is every single project, by the way). So that was the end of that.

But oh well, no harm done, I guess. On balance, I think that more is gained than lost through official licensing, even if it does mean that some readers will be unable to access the material. The English light novel world is still in flux, so my hope is that in years to come, more light novel translations will remain easily accessible online even after licensing, perhaps via eBooks or on a pay-to-read basis.

The other thing I would like to see is more alternatives to Yen Press in the market. At the moment, they do seem to have a monopoly on most of the high-profile releases. For better or worse, they’re the ones who set the standard in terms of translation quality and scheduling. It’s true that their releases tend to outstrip fan translations in both regards, but that’s not fair competition.

Anyway, those are my personal thoughts on the matter. Once again, please support the official release!

Hey, guys.

You might have noticed I haven’t been posting as often lately. I could say I’ve been busy and this would be true, but the real reason is that I’ve been choosing to watch less anime. I’m more of a casual watcher these days. Could it be that I have become a riajuu???

No love life in sight, however.

Seriously, though, I’ve been pouring a lot of that time and energy I used to dedicate for fandom-related stuff into things like volunteering and activism. I’ve also been working on my honours thesis, which is coming along quite well despite the mountain of reading it involves. Overall, I am pretty happy and satisfied with my life right now.

Of course, I’d love to post more often. When I do make the time to watch anime, I still really enjoy it a lot. I just started watching Gundam Unicorn, which is pretty cool, even to someone who has never watched UC Gundam. There’s also a bunch of light novels I really want to read. (Did I mention I’m writing my thesis about light novels?) So yeah, don’t assume I’ve lost any of my passion for this fandom, even if I’ve been less active lately.

One thing that sucks about not being active is that I haven’t been able to respond to all the blogger nominations I’ve received recently. So I thought I’d round them up and respond to them all at once. Thanks to Black Ragdoll at Absolutely Anime, Lazarinth at Fantasy and Anime, leaveit2me at Popculturemecha, Neomo at Neomo and Anime and fiddletwix at The Anime Madhouse!

We’d be here all day if I answered every single question, so I thought I’d just answer two questions from each Sunshine Blog/Liebster award and write two facts for each Creative Blogger award. Here we go:

1. To what degree do you separate your blog content and personal life, and why?

I see my blogging as an extension of real life. It’s always important to remember that there’s a human behind every keyboard. That’s why I try to conduct myself online the same way I would offline. In other words, I’m a confirmed dork irl.

At the same time, I don’t tend to talk much about my blog irl. Some of my friends read it, but I know they’re not really interested in all the nerdy analysis I do.

So I guess you could say the blog is an important outlet for me, but still separate from my day-to-day life.

2. If you could be anyone else, who would you be (real or fake)?

Me, but richer.

3. If you could be Liam Neeson in any movie he has been in, which movie would it be?

This is an obscure one, but After Life. He plays this owner of a funeral home who gets to talk to people after they’ve died. It’s a bit freaky and would no doubt get tiring after a while, but it’s one of Neeson’s more fascinating roles.

4. Are you frustrated how online streamers don’t release the material you want?

You bet! In Australia, we seem to get the short end of the stick, since not all Crunchyroll shows are viewable over here. Luckily, we do have AnimeLab, which is a pretty good streaming service for people in Australia and New Zealand. The translation quality is a bit shit, but you could say that about every anime streaming service, tbh.

That said, I’d probably be more frustrated about this situation if I kept up with the latest shows.

On another note, did you know that Australia leads the world at pirating Game of Thrones? Just what you’d expect from a nation of convicts.

5. Do you think the mainstream West will ever understand Japanese media?

Honestly, I doubt even anime fans understand Japanese media. I sure don’t. I mean, what does it mean to “understand” media? Do you need a degree in media studies or what? And then there’s the problematic conception of the West versus Japan…

Putting that all aside, if you’re asking whether anime will ever be mainstream in my country, my confident answer would be no. There was an interesting column on Answerman about this in the context of North America, but the situation is pretty similar for Australia. To put it simply, the TV broadcasting system is ridiculously difficult for foreign markets to penetrate directly. It’s also a slowly dying beast. These days broadcasters know that the only safe investments are football and the news. Anything marginally different gets relegated to our cable network, Foxtel, which is stupidly expensive, especially compared to cable in America.

Fortunately, the rise of digital distribution and online streaming renders the issue of “mainstream” relatively moot. And that’s a good thing! The breakdown of traditional media flows lets all sorts of alternative outlets flourish.

On the other hand, you still have to go out of your way if you want to learn about Japan and other Asian countries. The West’s cultural hegemony will have to end before that can change on a large scale. It’s naive to expect that simply knowing about anime will make you more culturally aware, after all.

6. Why do you write about anime and what’s your goal when it comes to this?

The obvious answer is “because it’s fun!” but I think I do have deeper goals as well.

Namely, cross-cultural communication. I’d like to promote a deeper, more critical awareness of anime and its place in the world. As a translator, I feel that I have an obligation to help build this awareness. I’m not just talking about spreading translations or spouting facts about Japan. I firmly believe that everyone should become more sensitive about matters of cultural difference. It’s too easy to misunderstand in all sorts of contexts, so I try to listen to other perspectives sincerely and I encourage others to do the same.

At the same time, I should emphasise that I do not know everything. One of the main reasons I write on a blog and communicate with my readers is so that I can learn lots of new things as well. A big thanks to everyone who contributes.

But yeah, anime is fun! You can’t find a better reason than that.

And now for four facts about me. Or more like four facts I learned while working on my thesis.

1. Google Translate translates roughly 1 million books worth of text in one day. [SOURCE]
2. Machine translation was first invented primarily to make it easier for the U.S. to spy on Russia. There was a severe shortage of Russian language speakers working for the U.S. military and the CIA at the time.
3. The Japanese scholar Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed to death in 1991, presumably for translating The Satanic Verses.
4. The Japanese website “Let’s Become a Novelist!” (where hit series like Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei were first published) now probably gets over a billion views a month. The creators have never openly advertised the website; they built their reputation solely through word of mouth. [SOURCE]

Now, nominations. The rules say you have to nominate 10-20 blogs, but I’ll just do seven for now:

Anime Monographia

Mage in a Barrel

Anime Vios

The Beautiful World

Therefore It is

The Objective Opinion

Falconhaxx

Basically, just do what I did: answer the six questions I answered and list four facts about yourself (or about anything). Alternatively, you can check out the blogs that gave me the awards and try out their format. I’m not really fussed. Just try to have fun.

For anyone else reading this, you can answer the questions in the comments or on your own blog. Feel free to hop in!

…I’d have to go with Hachiman x Hayama.

It’s kinda rare for this sort of light novel series to feature male supporting characters of any real consequence. Usually, they’re either the MC’s generic friend, a joke character or some moustache-twirling villain.

It’s rarer still for a mainstream light novel series to depict a nuanced relationship between the male MC and another male character. I mean, it’s rare for the relationships with the female characters to be all that nuanced either, but at least the girls get attention. In light novels, it’s like there are no guys but the MC. I know I’m painting LNs with a broad brush here and that there are plenty of exceptions (Eugeo x Kirito, anyone?), but let’s face it. No one reads LNs for the BL.

I personally think that this is unfair. I demand equal representation when it comes to shipping!

That’s why I thank God for Oregairu. Since most of the characters, including the male ones, are extremely well-written, it is possible to ship BL without sticking two cardboard cutouts together.

I used to ship Hachiman x Totsuka, but their relationship ended up becoming stale, so I had pretty much abandoned ship entirely by the time season 2 started. Hachiman x Hayama is superior in every way because the two characters change as people and challenge each other in meaningful ways. Their rivalry reminds me of something from a shonen manga, and we all know that people read shonen manga for the BL.

…I say all this, but I don’t actually ship the Oregairu characters that much in general.

These kids are so awkward that they can barely handle regular friendships, let alone romance, so I honestly can’t imagine what would happen if they started dating. I’m not just talking about Hachiman here, by the way. I love how Watari Wataru doesn’t conflate “genuine human connection” with romance, even when it’s evident that the relationships between some characters are not platonic either. It’s genuinely interesting how this series goes to great lengths to show why people choose not to be in a relationship despite wanting connection.

This is why I like the interactions between Hachiman and Hayama. Hachiman is the loner while Hayama is the popular guy, but they’re not so different at heart. They both reject intimacy while simultaneously wishing for something “genuine”, even if they act on their desires in completely different ways. Hachiman plays the villain while Hayama plays the nice guy, but they’re both desperately doing this to preserve the status quo. And they both resent each other, or at least can’t bring themselves to like each other even when they admit their respect. It’s a really fascinating dynamic.

I think in any other show I would have shipped the hell out of them, but it doesn’t feel quite right here either. But, well, what do you expect from a show called My Teen Romantic Comedy is Wrong as Expected?

(Note: This is a translation of the interview featured on the Dash x Bunko website.)

A peaceful hour in front of the round table. Who knows what will happen after this…?

Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin (Kuzu to Kinka no Qualidea, or Kuzukin for short) has created quite a stir after getting a second printing straight after its publication in January. Now that Tachibana Koushi has announced his involvement, this ambitious “shared world” project involving multiple light novel labels will now begin in earnest! Our newcomer Tachibana Koushi-sensei joins in to explain the full details behind his involvement in this mysterious project! Don’t miss this chaotic public roundtable discussion filled with explosive statements (?!)

The overly friendly (?!) relationship between the three authors

Editor: So I want to ask you about Project Qualidea. To start things off, do authors who write for different labels like you do often hang out together?

Tachibana Koushi (henceforth T): Yeah, it’s pretty normal.

Sagara Sou (henceforth S): It might only be a certain fraction of people who do it, though…

Editor: How did you three meet specifically?

T: The normal way, I think. We made our first contact at a drinking party held by the older writers.

S: But what about these days? Are there that many drinking parties?

T: There are, but I don’t really turn up when I get busy.

S: I get the feeling I don’t get invi-

T: They’re just looking out for you because they think you’re busy!

S: But I do recall meeting up with a bunch of other new writers and asking questions to the more experienced writers.

Watari Wataru (henceforth W): I was never invited.

Everyone: (laughs)

T: There used to be a mixi group for new writers…

W: I used mixi, but I was never part of a group.

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Aren’t you being too in-character straight off the bat?!

Editor: When was the first time you met?

T: I first met Watari-san at a drinking party. After that, I brought Sagara-san along. That’s where it happened, I suppose.

Editor: Is that when he got insulted on social media? (laughs)

S: Oh, right! I wrote about it in the Kuzukin afterword, but I mentioned that I read Watari Wataru’s blog, and then he went out of his way to insult me on his blog. (laughs)

T: This guy didn’t badmouth you behind your back. He knew perfectly well that you read his blog, so he posted it right where you could see it.

W: I’m not a big fan of backstabbing.

S: Riiiiight. (deadpan)

Editor: So you met up frequently after that?

S: We sure did. We became best buddies. My senpai writers even invited me to their homes and so on.

They started planning the project after just one day?!

Editor: All right, so what made you get a start on “Project Qualidea”?

T: I think it was when we started drinking. This was about two or three years ago. We’re all around the same age, so I said let’s do something interesting while we’re in our twenties.

S: So then we wanted to make a shared world.

Editor: It will be a crossover between the labels you all work for, where the stories share the same setting and backstory. Has the setting and plot for all of Project Qualidea been decided yet?

S: Tachibana Koushi said we should use the post-apocalyptic setting. He said that he could only write this sort of setting. I’m just a scenario writer here.

T: That’s the first time I’ve heard that. (laughs)

W: I hear the words of His Lord Tachibana Koushi from above and pass them along to Sagara-san, who transcribes them word-for-word…

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Hold on a minute! We rented out a conference room and brainstormed ideas on a whiteboard, all three of us.

S: And after that, we went drinking in Shinjuku and that’s where the story took shape. You said, “Oh man, this bar is closing for today, so what are we gonna do?!” Then you said, “Oh, screw it!” and continued the brainstorming at a business hotel.

T: I swore I asked you if it was okay since there weren’t any trains at that hour.

W: When I said, “I’ll take a taxi home,” you guys were like, “Are you suuuuuure…?”

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Then we spent about four hours together. We all wracked our brains right until the moment we nodded off.

W: In the meantime, Sagara-san hogged the toilet.

Editor: Why?! (laughs)

W: He said his stomach hurt. So basically it was Tachibana Koushi who decided everything.

T: Somehow, I get the feeling you’re pinning all the responsibility on me. (laughs)

Editor: So you pretty much decided all the worldbuilding in one day?

T: Yeah, but it was a really rough sketch.

The Hidden Story behind the Birth of Kuzukin

The first Project Qualidea work to be published. What unexpected hidden story lies behind its birth…?!

Editor: Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin was created as a prologue to the world’s setting, wasn’t it?

The authors: Weeeeeeell…

Editor: Oh? (laughs) I thought it was a kind of prequel to the project’s main story? It fits into the timeline like a kind of episode 0.

W: I dunno about that. I’m kinda fuzzy on the contents…

T: Says the one who wrote it. (laughs)

S: It was meant to be that way, but then things got complicated with the timeline… I think that lots of eye-opening things happen at the end of the story and that things will get clearer as more books related to the project come out. I hope that the ambiguous epilogue and suggestive chapter openings spark people’s imaginations and leaves them eager for more.

The colour frontispiece depicting the shocking conclusion. Just what happens after this…?

W: More like those chapter openings are the main story.

T: Then incorporate that into the novel itself! (laughs)

Do the mysterious chapter openings foreshadow the rest of the project’s plot?!

Editor: Was Sagara-san the one who came up with Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin’s structure and plot developments?

W: It was all Sagara Sou’s doing.

S: I was guided by His Lord Tachibana Koushi from above.

T: I got a call from Watari Wataru in the middle of the night.

W: I told him to think up a plot and then hung up. (laughs)

Editor: (laughs)

T: Actually, I had almost nothing to do with Kuzukin. Watching those two bicker back and forth, I figured it was more amusing to keep my mouth shut. And then I was shocked by what they came up with. I was like, what the hell is this?! (laughs) Far from telling the episode 0 story I imagined, it only advanced the plot about 0.7-0.8 per cent. If you put it in perspective, it was closer to 0.01 per cent. (laughs) No, wait, it really was an episode 0!

S: It all hinged on Tachibana Koushi’s input.

W: If it’s all Tachi-san’s plot, then he should’ve kept in touch with us!

T: C’mon. (laughs)

Editor: Wow, this really feels like you were improvising. So now it’s clear that Tachi-san was behind the ending of Kuzukin and the mysterious chapter openings.

T: Errrr… not quite. (laughs) That wasn’t me, it was something that the Watari-san and Sagara-san gradually incorporated later. So there you go, please look forward to it.

Sagara-san is Watari-san’s professional girlfriend?!

Editor: Say what you will about Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin, but Sagara-san and Watari-san’s “co-author” model makes it an innovative work.

T: Actually, I’d question whether this method of writing a book is all that unusual. Not the whole writing a novel like a relay thing, but two people writing a story with the same overarching plot.

S: I figured that if we called it an experiment, nobody would mind if it was crap…

Everyone: (laughs)

W: But on the subject of co-authorship, it’s the most fun I’ve had.

S: Yep. I wouldn’t do it any differently.

T: So how did you actually write it?

W: Well, whenever Sagara-san finished writing a part, I started asking him passive-aggressive interview questions like, “What are you going to do about this?”

S: Then I’d cry and tell him, “Fine. I’ll rewrite it.”

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Ah, but I kinda remember saying at a meeting that the whole “love you for your appearance” thing is like pure love when you really think about it. No matter what happens, you’ll stay with that person forever. “Why are we together?” “Because I like your face.” That has to be pure love! That was the only thing that never changed even in the end.

S: Towards the end I was like a wife who lives in another house but visits her husband all the time. I was going to Watari Wataru’s workplace and doing all the writing there. And when I said I’d finished writing and put my work in the dropbox, Watari Wataru would open the door next to me and say, “Look, you,” every time. (laughs)

T: These two are sharing a room together. (laughs)

W: We’re not sharing a room, but Sagara-san never seems to go home for some weird reason. At first he said he’d go home at around 11 at night, which he did. After that, he went home later and later, and now he’s here all the time.

T: Can’t you see he wants to be with you! (laughs)

Editor: Before you knew it, you were cohabitating. The message you two published before the book came out also had a story about you going to an inn in Hakone together.

T: Did they seriously go there? Going on a trip to Hakone together, visiting each other at work all the time, you’ve got to be having sex. (laughs)

S: See, once pretty much all the deadlines were over, I said, “See ya later,” to Watari Wataru on the doorstep of his workplace, and then I went to an internet café.

T: What a convenient girl you are. A professional girlfriend!

S: I couldn’t think of one reason why I had to go home.

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Well, Sagara-san’s heart is in the internet café, just like a beloved hometown.

W: He should just get a taxi home. Although I seriously don’t get the point of that either.

S: The words “stay the night” do exist, you know.

W: There’d be trouble if I didn’t let you go home.

T: Just as you guys are getting completely love dovey, the wife’s secret lover appears—me. (laughs)

Editor: So then it became a threesome? A three-way co-authorship, I mean.

W: Aren’t Tachi-san and Sagara-san letting themselves go a bit much? I couldn’t possibly think of any other combination.

S: Oh, so now you’re disowning us. (laughs) But, you know, if we did write a three-way novel, Tachibana Koushi would end up writing everything for sure.

W: Yeah, probably.

T: Quit it, you guys! (laughs)

W: I mean, let’s just be honest here. It didn’t pay off well.

Editor: Say what?!

Everyone: (laughs)

W: I mean, seriously, I get the feeling that if one person wrote it they’d get the job done quicker. That goes both ways.

S: You procrastinate all the time when you write by yourself…

W: You can’t win in this world. What I did understand was that what Sagara-san wrote didn’t match what I wrote. Especially that heroine… Seriously, I could not get my head around her. (laughs)

The Birth of the Legendary Heroine Johannes!

The psychopathic and controversial heroine of Kuzukin: Chigusa Yuu.

Editor: Almost all the reader comments were about the heroine Chigusa Yuu (AKA Johannes). She really made quite an impact.

T: To be honest, just reading the start of Yuu’s parts kinda made me want to stay away from whoever wrote it. (laughs)

S: Was she that bad?!

Editor: Was Yuu modelled on anybody?

S: Watari Wataru!

W: Shut up.

Everyone: (laughs)

W: The readers think of me as an upstanding member of society, so they probably didn’t make the connection.

S: Well, see, the book was written to debunk that idea. (laughs) It shows how Watari Wataru is different from his media image—the real Watari Wataru is like this.

T: Now that you mention it, there are some resemblances. (laughs) When Yuu insults Haruma by saying, “Even a person like him deferred to someone. It’s amazing what school does to a person,” that’s the kind of thing Watari-san says a lot. Why are his putdowns so excellent?

S: Why did you say such a terrible thing?

W: Oh yeah, I did kinda add that part at the final stages. It’s like, huh? Was it needed that much?

T: But when you read it all the way to the end, it’s weird how she still seems cute. She’s such an overpowering heroine that in any other work you wouldn’t get behind her and it’d be unreadable, but she had Haruma (the protagonist: Kusaoka Haruma) wrapped around her little finger.

The story’s protagonist (upper left). At first glance he looks like scum, but he has a surprisingly sensitive side…?

S: It was supposed to be that Watari Wataru would do Haruma’s parts and I would do Yuu’s parts, but whenever our own character had lines in the other writer’s part, Watari Wataru would almost always come to me, saying, “I can’t write Yuu’s lines.”

W: I could write her lines in the second half of the story, when her relationship with Haruma was developing, but at first I was absolutely stuck.

T: Even though she’s your brainchild. (laughs) Before you knew it, you ended up writing her as a complete monster.

W: Towards the end, I finally started thinking of Johannes as our child. At first, I was seriously thinking, I gotta fix up the bastard who wrote this.

Everyone: (laughs)

S: Haruma is a stand-in for the readers, so as Haruma warmed on Yuu, Watari Wataru warmed on Yuu as well.

Editor: On the other hand, Haruma is the sane one, relatively speaking.

W: Well, you know, he had a lot on his plate. In Haruma’s case, anyone would look like an upstanding individual next to Johannes.

T: He’s a tsukkomi character, after all. But that’s why I think he ended up as a different character from Oregairu’s Hachiman.

Editor: Johannes tears things down; Haruma keeps them together. It really does seem like Haruma was the one who had his hand on the rudder the entire story.

W: The rudder he tried to grab turned out to be broken.

Everyone: (laughs)

Editor: But a really beautiful theme came to the fore at the very end. I thought it was wonderful how you managed the landing so well.

W: Ahh, yes, that was the last day. It just came out that way. It was the only way we could do the story.

T: That’s really impressive. This story gives off a “two skilled authors went down to business on the endless, filler-ish plot” sort of image. It’s not the first time I’ve thought this, but you two are way too good at writing.

Editor: Indeed, I was also stunned by how two authors with such different styles were able to collaborate.

W: I suppose there aren’t that many authors who make strong statements through their writing. The fact that we were saying, “what do I know about what you wrote?” to each other came across loud and clear. (laughs)

Editor: Oh, I see. The “co” in “co-authorship” must be short for “confused”.

T: Or maybe “collision course”. (laughs)

S: My father read Kuzukin and said, “This Watari Wataru guy sure can write.” And then he read my parts and said, “This is just like Murakami Haruki.”

Editor: That’s a great compliment!

S: Well, the problem is that my father hates Murakami Haruki.

Everyone: (uproarious laughter)

T: What’s with the roundabout insult? (laughs)

W: Like father like son, eh?

T: I think Sagara-san must have learned something from his father to be able to write Yuu the way he did. (laughs)

Editor: So who’s your favourite Kuzukin character, everybody?

W: I like Johannes in the scenes where I don’t have to write her. When I do have to write her, I think to myself, “What is up with this chick?” (laughs)

S: I like Johannes… too… I guess…?

Editor: That didn’t sound very confident. (laughs)

S: I mean, I put the protagonist aside and think of him as the audience stand-in whenever I write, so Johannes is far and away the easiest to write.

T: So all the hating comes from Watari Wataru. (laughs)

Editor: What about you, Tachi-san?

T: I guess I like Johannes as well, when I think about it… Is that laying it on too thick?

Editor: No, this must mean that she is a memorable heroine in both name and substance. (laughs)

S: I’d like to write her again sometime.

W: I’d like to read about her while having nothing to do with the writing.

S: C’mon. (laughs)

Against all odds, everyone supports Johannes. Maybe the face does count for everything…?

The Future of Project Qualidea

Editor: The readers have many questions they’d like to ask you, so let’s start with the first one: what is “Speakeasy”?

S: That’s our unit name. When we came up with the story, that’s the name of the kind of businesses we often frequented, for some reason.

W: Well, he’s not wrong.

T: Sure he is. (laughs) That’s our unit name, so we plan to release any future books for this project under that name.

S: It appears as if “scum” describes Haruma and “gold coin” describes Yuu’s obsession with money, although in reality both of them describe Yuu.

T: She really is a domineering heroine. (laughs)

S: Wasn’t the original title “Qualidea of the Radiant World”? We changed it just before it got published, though.

W: You really know your stuff, huh?

S: I don’t think you know it, but I actually wrote the title as well.

W: Seriously?!

Everyone: (laughs)

Editor: What about Qualidea?

W: Qualidea is whatever you think it is.

T: That sounds like an urban legend. (laughs) Qualidea has a lot of meanings, but that’s something that’ll be made clear in this project down the track, so look forward to it.

S: There are honestly a lot of things I’d like to say, but it’s too early right now, so I regretfully apologise. But we’ve prepared a lot of shocking twists, so the first order of business is to keep an eye on Tachi-san’s work.

T: So much pressure. (laughs)

Editor: The hype is escalating! Finally, do you have any messages for all the readers out there?

W: Oregairu season 2-

T: Shut up! (laughs)

S: First of all, I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t read Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin yet to go pick up a copy.

W: We’ll continue the series if we sell X amount of copies.

T: Stop! That’s too real. (laughs) There will be lots of Project Qualidea books coming out in 2015 including Kuzukin, so I hope you all look forward to following the series!

Editor: Thank you for lending us your time today!

Translator’s Commentary: You can read my English translation of Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin here. As of the time of this writing, the first five chapters have been uploaded, although I have finished the draft of the entire novel. Expect the full release early next year.

For those of you unfamiliar with the authors involved, Watari Wataru wrote Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, Sagara Sou wrote Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko and Tachibana Koushi wrote Date a Live.

So far, the Qualidea project consists of the following media products:

• Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin (light novel) by Watari Wataru and Sagara Sou [IN STORES NOW]
• Itsuka Sekai wo Sukuu Tame ni -Qualidea Code- vol. 1 (light novel) by Tachibana Koushi [IN STORES NOW]
• Sonna Sekai wa Kowashite shimae -Qualidea Code- vol. 1 (light novel) by Sagara Sou [IN STORES NOW]
• Itsuka Sekai wo Sukuu Tame ni -Qualidea Code- vol. 2 (light novel) by Tachibana Koushi [RELEASE DATE: 1/20/2016]
• An untitled story by Watari Wataru covering the “Chiba arc” (light novel) [RELEASE DATE UNKNOWN]
• Qualidea Code (manga) published in Jump SQ magazine [RELEASE DATE: 2016]
• Qualidea Code (anime) produced by A-1 Pictures [RELEASE DATE UNKNOWN]

Additionally, there will be an interview with the three authors in the February 2016 edition of Newtype magazine. I will try to get my hands on it so that I can translate it. I hope that this interview will clarify the relationship between the upcoming anime and the light novels. There appear to be some inconsistencies between the anime characters and the light novel characters, so my suspicion is that the anime tells an original story based on the LN’s setting and premise.

If you have any further questions about the project, feel free to ask and I will answer as best I can. Bear in mind, however, that not much information is actually known about the series yet. Nevertheless, I will try to keep abreast with all the developments related to this project and keep you posted with accurate information. For now, enjoy this cool key visual:

Hello, everybody! It’s that time of the year again! Time for anime bloggers to write long posts and poop on each other’s tastes.

This year, it was surprisingly easy to throw together a top 5 anime list. You see, I only finished about 5 anime. As I will explain in tomorrow’s post, this has a lot to do with my shifting interests as a blogger. If you want opinions on the latest shows, there are plenty of other blogs and reviewing sites you can go to. Personally, I don’t think that I add much new to the discussion.

But oh well, this post is for anime, so here we go!

5. Noragami Aragoto

It’s nice when a sequel surpasses the original.

Noragami is one of those series that touches on a lot of interesting ideas, like the fading relevance of Shintoism in Japan, but never really ties them together. So while the series was always competently put together, it never truly struck a chord with me.

The second season was a significant step up from the first season because it builds its conflicts around the relationships between gods and humans. The Bishamon arc is all about communication and people withholding their personal problems because they don’t want to make problems for others, which ironically causes bigger problems for everyone. Not only is this a theme that I’m pretty sure everyone can relate with to some degree, it’s relevant to the god/human theme as well, because gods operate on a different level than humans. The second arc is about Yato deciding he wants to become someone who can serve humans, which is a nice way of tying all the story threads together.

Unfortunately, the anime ends with one of those accursed “read the manga” endings, so I guess I’ll have to read the manga to see how it all ends up.

4. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime

appropriant ended up verbalising my thoughts on this anime better than I could, but Akagami no Shirayuki-hime really is a very relaxing anime to watch, and sometimes that’s all you need. I’m a big fan of the shojo aesthetic but not so much a fan of the SHENANIGANS, which is probably the big reason why Shirayuki-hime hit all my sweet spots with uncanny accuracy. While it was never the kind of show that challenged me, it never bored me either. And it never failed to put a smile on my face.

By the way, I don’t actually care that much about the two MCs, but Obi is awesome. I hope the side characters get more love in the second season. I’m hyped.

3. Aldnoah.Zero

Aldnoah Seed Destiny???

Aldnoah.Zero 2 ended up being rather unpopular with pretty much everyone except the Slaine-loving crowd on Tumblr. I enjoyed it, but holy crap, Slaine was an asshole. What the heck happened? He doesn’t even look good in those count clothes. Bring back the old Slaine, I say!

Anyway, I enjoyed this iteration of Aldnoah.Zero mostly because I love Lemrina so much. And also, there was so much delicious NTR at the end. This show really delivered what I wanted out of it.

On a more serious note, I think I ended up enjoying this series more than most anime fans because I spent more time engaging with it. I translated one of the novels and even wrote fanfiction (lol). As a result, I spent way more time thinking about this series than any of the others I watched this year. It’s not that I don’t see the flaws in the storytelling. I just ended up getting more out of the show because I put more into it.

I also had some really interesting discussions about this show with Karice, who is a bigger Aldnoah fan than I am and is quite knowledgeable about its production history. If nothing else, I hope you at least check out her post about Gen Urobuchi’s involvement in the series, which should clear up more than a few misconceptions about how Aldnoah was made (and how anime writing “works” in general). At any rate, it’s clear that all the staff put a lot of effort into making Aldnoah.Zero. It’s the kind of show that I appreciate more after rewatching it a few times. There’s a lot of nuance that I simply didn’t notice the first time around, especially with the visuals.

2. Sound! Euphonium

Hey guys, did you know that I used to play the oboe in my high school concert band? Yep, it’s true. I was the best oboist the school ever had in its entire history. (Also the only oboist, but that’s unimportant.) My history as a band nerd is one of the many reasons why Sound! Euphonium has a special place in my heart. But it’s not the only reason I love it so much.

At its heart, Eupho is a coming of age story, and its theme of finding purpose in a seemingly mundane activity resonated with me in a similar way Hyouka did, although not quite on such an intense personal level. Eupho is also an ensemble story; it’s a story about the band and the people who participate. While the focus of this season was mostly on Kumiko, many of the background characters were shown to be struggling with their own problems. This gave the impression that the band consists of people whose stories remain half-told, much like the bands I’ve been involved with in real life. There was no single character I identified with, but I was equally interested in them all.

Overall, Eupho is a nice show. It makes me nostalgic about high school. I’m looking forward to season 2 because the story we did get felt very much incomplete, and I heard the oboe girl will get attention next season.

(I also have a hot take on Kumiko x Reina, if you’re interested.)

1. Oregairu Zoku

There was never any doubt about what would top my list. Oregairu is one of my favourite series of all time, after all. I feel like I know it inside out at this stage.

Still, I was pretty burnt out on Oregairu after translating the light novels. I actually only got around to watching the second season earlier this month, but it was good stuff. In particular, I’d like to say that Hayama is the best guy and that he really needs more love and attention.

At the same time, I will have to admit that I’ve gotten everything I needed out of this series already. I’ve said everything I wanted to say. I do plan to read and summarise volume 12 for all the fans out there, but I am genuinely not all that interested in what happens next. I just hope that Watari’s subsequent projects don’t keep retreading the same characterisation and themes. I’d really like to see him try something new, something that isn’t entrenched in the point of view of the cynical loner. And no, Qualidea does not count as “something new”.

(On an unrelated note, it was a nice surprise to see my Oregairu fanfiction get a TV Tropes page this year! It seems that the story has had some lasting appeal, considering that I finished it over a year ago.)

A year-end favourite anime list is never complete without any mention of the top waifus and husbandos of the year. I don’t have Kai’s dedication to write 12 days of waifu posts, but you can nevertheless count on me to have strong opinions about waifus and husbandos.

My waifu of the year is Lemrina from Aldnoah.Zero, if it wasn’t clear enough already from all the gushing I’ve done so far. My runner-up waifu is Katou from Saekano, so give her a hand.

Katou really made the Saekano experience for me. She’s not a terribly complex character; honestly, she’s remains a cipher throughout the entire series, but hey, she’s cute. And she was memorable too. It was a genius idea to put a non-tropey character in a trope-y show, although I’m not sure I agree with the implication that Katou is what a “normal girl” would act like in the company of otaku stereotypes. Her flat characterisation works for the show and is the source of some great jokes, so I’m okay with it, though.

Also, beret!Katou > ponytail!Katou. Deal with it.

As for my husbando of the year, I spent more time pondering over this one. The Haikyuu! boys are cute, but for some reason I like the girls in that anime better, especially Yachi. Gosh, she’s cute. Thinking about husbandos only made me think about waifus, which made me feel slightly depressed about the state of bishonen/sports anime.

Then yesterday, the answer struck me like a thunderbolt.

MY HUSBANDO OF THE YEAR IS TAROU, THAT LOVABLE FUCKUP.

I only started watching Shirobako yesterday, but I am fully confident in my decision.

What has been your favourite anime this year? Do you agree/disagree with my hot takes? Let me know in the comments!

Just remember: if I didn’t mention your favourite show, it’s probably because I was too lazy to watch it.

I routinely receive some great comments on my blog. Sometimes, I receive a comment that is so lengthy and detailed that it really deserves to be a blog post in its own right.

Thus, I feel compelled to share this comment, which I received on my post about the Shoujo-tachi wa Kouya wo Mezasu visual novel the other day. Kouya is the only visual novel of Romeo Tanaka’s I’ve read, so I don’t feel informed enough to comment on his writing. Hence, I’ll let chinjianxiong do all the talking here:

I translated a scene from Romeo’s visual novel Saihate no Ima here with commentary. The first one is the version edited to fit English, while the second one is the scene with the Japanese for every line included as well as some comments on how I translated some lines.

https://therawlsianprincipleofmediaambivalence.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/amateur-translation-saihate-no-ima-sayaka-shinobu-at-the-factory-part-1/
https://therawlsianprincipleofmediaambivalence.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/amateur-translation-saihate-no-ima-sayaka-shinobu-at-the-factory-commentary-version/

Anyway, the method I outlined that Romeo uses is balancing microcosm with macrocosm. In Japanese, he’ll use the shortest possible pitch perfect sentences to build poetic tempo, and then lay you with a good one by showing how the poetic movement links to a larger picture, usually a soliloquy or meditation on society, science or the world. In the example above, he starts with a description of a ruined factory, transitions into a simple scene of two characters talking, adds a layer by having a psychological analysis of one character, then expand it into a commentary on modern society’s degradation, all in the span of about 100 lines. Of course, that’s just one of his many tactics.

That higher poesy, I think, is more or less bulldozed over in the Amaterasu translation [of Cross Channel]. For example, when Taichi first meets Misato on the roof, looking at a distance it’s otherwise a scene that you think would appear in any other kind of harem/anime setting: The pervert protagonist calls out to the glasses wearing student president and makes sexual jokes about being able to see her panties. Yet the mood is completely different simply because of how it’s told.

For reference, I’ve transcripted the Japanese with the English here: http://pastebin.com/70LrXvDH

Also, there’s this playing, which already does a lot for the atmosphere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OFclzQR120

The problem with English, which is actually one of its strengths elsewhere, is something called the ‘double register’. English takes Latinate words mixed with Anglo-Saxon words. This means you can speak in two ways, one which is longer and ornate Latin, and the other which is shorter. Example would be “Obscure” and “Dark”. Besides that we steal a lot from everywhere. What this means is that sometimes the words we want are just too long or varying in tone because English is a massive melting pot language. I’ll show how this screws the translation process with some Amaterasu choices below.

Because you can excise stuff like the subject, etc… in Japanese, you can cut short a lot of the sentences and still have the same meaning. You can also do this in English, but it’s more limited because it’s very casual and super specific. Romeo seems to always excise as much as possible to create sentences that are like hyper-short statements describing exactly what is needed to be described. This is quite hard to capture in English without sounding detached.

If you look through the translation choices from Amaterasu, there are some very questionable translations.

The most glaringly ruinous one is “her expression had become senile” which is just a straight mood-killer. While in Japanese (惚けた) one of the words meanings is that, it also can just mean having a blank look. Why the heck Amaterasu even chose that word out of all other possible word choices is probably because they wanted to link it to their translation of the second line of ‘fading away’. They wanted to have a direct transition in meaning from the first line to the last line even though in Romeo’s text, it was more subtle.

Direct translation without connectors would be akin to:

A strong wind took her shimmering hair into a fierce stream.
Misato, befuddled, cut through the flow of hair with her hand, and peeked through.
Misato: “…”
A sudden increase in the strength of light, and a blank expression.
The dimming summer days.
That’s why, with that, in a moment I knew how it melts and falls away.

Amaterasu narrowed the meaning to create a link specifically to her expression, starting with that bad usage of ‘senile’. Romeo allows for a couple of possible approaches, allowing it to exist both as her expression and as a general meditation. Good writers are those who know when to specify, and when to hold back in order to create a mood through a mere subtle inference, but never actually touching upon.

But my version, although closer to what actually appears there, probably sounds over-weird in English. How a writer in English would get a terse mood is, like Hemingway, to cut it with full stops a lot. If I were trying to get that tone I may have to cut some of the descriptors that Romeo can keep because Kanji allows for much shorter syllables than English speak so it can carry on smoothly without being too purple. E.g.:

A strong wind blew her hair into fierce streams.
Misato was troubled. She cut the flow with her hand. Her face peeked through.
Misato: “…”
A sudden increase in the strength of light. A blank expression.
The dimming summer days.
That’s why, with that, I knew how it could fall away in a moment.

Another questionable translation is “I screamed while thrusting both hands in the air”. The word ‘thrusting’ creates too much jankiness and force. Totally unsuited when the original was “両手を突き上げて叫ぶ。”

Once again, closer to the tone, it goes more like:

Responded grin
Taichi: “I’m cooooming.”
Misato: “Peke-kun”
Two hands raised in a scream.

Edited I would probably do:

A grinning response.
Taichi: “I’m coming” (italics if possible, rather than stretching out the letters)
Misato: “Peke-kun…”
With two hands raised, I bellowed.

(One of the things that may trip people up is probably tense, since you have to fix yourself into one tense in English, but ability to translate the poetics is severely limited if you stick to a single tense. One method to translate Romeo, or other Japanese that cut out the subject, is something I’m experimenting with, to try and mix present tense and past tense if you don’t attach the sentence to a subject or time frame and ‘float’ it, getting something close to Japanese tone in general. Other things I’m trying includes playing with parentheses, colons and dashes.)

Anyway, you get the point. A style that focuses on being able to consistently strike at exactly what is needed for the scene becomes ruined when you overdo with either wrong word choices or over-ornamentation. The scene in the original is this poignant scene charged with a summer’s atmosphere and deftly subtle poetic guides to the notion of trying to communicate with others (like how the wind muffles the voice but he can still read her lips, or the whole antenna motif) and ruminations on the fragility of their daily life. Amaterasu’s translation places a tint of their own interpretation into the text, which kills the parts where it’s left purposely ambiguous or lingering to create an emotional effect.

Now imagine that ability spanning a whole visual novel, intermixed with parts where Romeo can go the OPPOSITE direction and write comedic scenes with highly varying tones and puns (like the joke that comes exactly after that extract above) or long soliloquy-like psychological meditations. One scene in Saihate no Ima involves just the protagonist walking to school. In the process he meets up with his six other friends one by one on the street and they walk together. The entire scene has this light-hearted guitar tone in the background and it literally strikes to the atmosphere of just fucking around with the people you know. Furthermore, all six other characters have their own personality traits, running gags, voice styles, and what occurs is this crazy mix of voices in banter. Because Romeo is Romeo, he also throws in legalese and satirical jibes in the conversation, yet is still somehow able to keep it in terse sentences and exchanges to create this constant witty-gag momentum.

I guess the main off-putting thing to some may be his ability to create crazy tonal changes (though, usually with a purpose). Sometimes he can write a scene that is poignant, but swaps into high comedy. If you analyze his structure at a deeper level though, Romeo’s comedic slice of life scenes peters out usually once the primary conflict comes in, and furthermore, he usually has the importance of joy and daily life as his primary themes, and creates characters who significantly seek those moments because they’re usually separate from them. Taichi’s erratic zaniness, and the whole cast’s interactions in general, is in contrast to the deep alienation and lack of connection between them. Rewrite even has a character commentate on how immature joke-slinging banter falls away simply because people will eventually attune themselves to what they want to do, and they’ll be able to connect on the level where each one respects the other’s space – the sign of maturity and hard experience. That, to me, is pretty much like slapping Key hard in the face. Romeo always places a dagger between modes of possible calmness and enjoyment, and the people on the fringe who are farthest away from that state, and how they cope with it. (I think the only other series that provides both sides of a coin is the Monogatari series or Oregairu, in both with the second season being the counterbalance to the naïve elements in the first season.)

Also, he is intensely logical in writing the plot although his tone will vary with his variety and density of comedic scenarios. Look at Rewrite for example and see what he does to Key clichés in the routes he writes. He conjectures correctly that the stupid ‘forming a friendship club’ trope will immediately dissolve once shit goes down simply because the characters have no proper depth of connection with one another. Then he stomps on Key romance clichés by having the plot expand beyond human connection into a greater connection with the world and a higher intelligence in general. And the way the whole scenario ends provides no easy answers, but wraps up nicely.

(Incidentally, yes, I did read Silvachief’s review – my method of reading Rewrite was to read only Romeo’s writing and skip the other routes, and then everything came together quite nicely and I was able to see his full message. You have zany comedy stuff to tie in to that theme, Kotori’s route as Romeo showing Key that he can pull a better Key route than they can though it suffers because of that, Akane’s route as touching upon the main theme of what it takes to save the world. Moon is my favorite route because its like a surreal mix of hard science fiction that ends with a shounen battle as a mood piece. Terra is the best part exactly because none of the heroines are really involved. It’s the part where Romeo really hammers home the message that, when you’re involved with the act of saving the world itself, what you have to do is to go beyond those idle pleasures from the past, yet you do it precisely because of the joy you earned from those moments, and by sacrificing that joy, you buy into future possibilities. Also why I love the ending because it puts a nice bow-tie on that message.

You have to look at Romeo’s perspective as a freelancer roped into a Key project, and being forced to work on Key’s terms, which is the lengthy comedic side route mixed together with heroine routes written by other writers, and forced to write in Key’s style which is highly melodramatic. Yet, somehow, he was not only able to be on-point with top shape comedy for the entire common route, but he was able to take those limitations and the guaranteed fact that he would not be able to control the cohesive tone of the arcs due to the two other writers, and use that disjunction in tone to create his own message by transcending those cliches in his own way. Rewrite is incredibly flawed, but once you see through exactly what Romeo is doing, you suddenly gain insight into the whole structure. Also helps that I love the common route because I went into it knowing that the entire first part was like that, so I just took it as a long running comedy series written by Romeo that was separate from the rest of the game. Probably if you went into it expecting a more cohesive story, you would be less able to context-switch like that. I think, though, that Rewrite is cohesive, but in terms of its message rather than its story. If you abstract the content from the structure, you’ll realize the brilliance of the structure.

When I ruminated on that fact, I came to love him as a creator. His illimitable love for writing simply allows him to be work on his own small little niche games in a niche industry, with a writing style that not everyone can get used to, and he’s perfectly okay with throwing himself into these kinds of projects and he’ll strive to do something with it to communicate his own message as much as possible even though everything works against him. He mixes up all sorts of themes and styles from his favorite writers, like SF writers, comedians, and even Japanese drama script writers. Also he’s made his own name simply through word of mouth and people being enamored with his stories.)

Now imagine that ability spanning beyond just Cross Channel into his other light novels and visual novels, consistently hitting the mark exactly when he wants to hit, and you have one of the most consistently powerful writers out there with an entire oeuvre that seems to cut deep into profoundly human themes about loneliness, youth, alienation, human relationships, science etc… that is able to be all parts funny, heartfelt, and thrilling.

And that’s why more work deserves to be put into fleshing out and understanding this whole entire world of writing he’s created. Of course, having good translations is the first step.

The comment was edited slightly to work as a standalone post. You can read the entire comment thread in context here.

For further reading, check out chinjianxiong’s comparison of two translations of Taichi’s meeting with Misato in Cross Channel.

Pretty good stuff. First episode of Oregairu S2 covered the first six chapters of volume 7. Judging by the preview at the end of the episode, episode 2 will cover the rest of the volume.

I doubt I’ll be blogging about every episode, so I’ll just post some brief thoughts about this episode and the adaptation in general.

As I hoped, the anime skipped a lot of scenes in the LN. Don’t listen to the LN readers complaining about the cut scenes. Some of them are amusing, but they are still utterly irrelevant. Including them would have made the anime feel much more tedious, because despite the art upgrade, most of the episode consisted of talking heads. The missing ramen scene felt blatant, though. (SEE END OF POST FOR A TRANSLATION.) Otherwise, good job, series composition dude (Shotaro Suga, fyi).

I think that in general the anime is superior to the LN. I spent over half a year translating the LNs, and at this point I feel like I know them inside out. There is a lot of superfluous crap in the LNs. The anime took what was great about the LNs and made it shine.

The intra-episode pacing in the anime really works. The episode builds two stories simultaneously: Tobe’s quest for Hina’s love, which serves as a comedic foil to the more understated story of Hachiman and Yukino’s relationship after the school festival arc. Every scene in the episode builds up to that strained moment at the ending, where Hachiman and Yukino awkwardly part ways, realising perhaps for the first time that they have become too close for comfort. The school trip is a time for romance – well, at least in anime it is. In his awareness of this, Tobe actively tries to become close to Hina, while Hachiman and Yukino retreat from each other yet again.

As amusing as the cut scenes from the LN are, they would have detracted from the main focus of the episode. I’m not looking for a page-by-page adaptation from Oregairu Zoku. I’m just looking for a good story. If you want the behind-the-scenes stuff, you can read the LN later.

Still, the anime’s habit of cutting stuff did come back to bite them in the bum later when it referenced the scene where Tobe first admitted that he likes Hina. I do recommend you read this scene in full because it contains important foreshadowing for this episode and later events (translation here).

Speaking of translations, Commie’s translation of this episode was pretty snappy for the most part. I really like how they translated Tobe’s slang. Still, be warned that the script is not entirely accurate to the Japanese. As much as I prefer liberal translations that capture the intent of the original over stiff, literal translations, this scene in particular struck me as flat out wrong:

What is a ‘subottom’ even supposed to mean? A sasoiuke is supposed to be an uke character that “invites” the seme to “attack” him. You could work this out from context, but in any case Hina doesn’t talk very much like an authentic fujoshi in their translation of this scene.

Man, I know that most fansub groups are sausage fests, but Commie really needs to brush up on their fujoshi slang :P

There were other lines I would personally have translated differently, but I honestly don’t mind Commie’s overall approach.

(EDIT: FFF has a better translation of this particular scene, though still a bit awkward.)

tldr; I approve of the principles behind the adaptation and the translation. Don’t take the purists too seriously.

Miscellaneous Observations

Get your friendzone bullshit outta here, 8man

DOKI INTENSIFIES

Hayama best guy. You heard it from me first. I feel like Hina is channelling me at this moment

In conclusion, the new Oregairu anime is good. I’m kinda burnt out on the series after working on it for so long, so I probably won’t cover each episode unless you guys really want me to. I’m still as big a fan of this series as ever, though!

(Also, not to blow my own horn or anything, but draggle had the best opinions about this episode.)

Addendum: The Ramen Scene

Here is a fresh translation of the ramen scene – or, to be more precise, the conversation afterwards between Hiratsuka-sensei and her students that was severely cut down in the anime.

“I question whether a teacher should be doing this.”

Hiratsuka-sensei remained calm despite my words. “Of course not. That’s why I’m paying for your silence.”

“Isn’t that even less appropriate for a teacher…?” Yukinoshita said dubiously.

But Ms. Hiratsuka went on eating, unperturbed. In fact, she seemed more at ease than ever.

“Teachers are human too. The same goes for all adults. We make mistakes. Whether we realise it or not.”

“Won’t you get reprimanded if you’re caught?”

If that happened, I’d probably get dragged into it as well, though.

“Not in the least. They’d just call me in as a formal measure and let me off with a slap on the wrist.”

“I wonder if that can really be considered reprimanding…” Yukinoshita said. I couldn’t help but agree with her.

Hiratsuka-sensei drained the remaining soup in her bowl and wiped her mouth neatly with a napkin. With that, she turned to face us.

“It’s different. Being ordered not to create problems and being asked to fix them are completely different things.”

“I don’t see how,” I said.

“…indeed. I wonder if it’s because I’ve never been reprimanded.” Yukinoshita pressed her lightly clenched fingers against her chin, deep in recollection.

Hiratsuka-sensei watched her do all of this and nodded solemnly. “I see, then I won’t let you off easy. I was planning to scold you quite thoroughly but it looks like I was being too soft.”

“No, that’s quite all right.” I waved my hands in polite refusal. If she inflicted any more damage on my body, I’d become damaged goods, and then she’d have to woman up and take me for a groom. Huh, not a bad idea…

As I agonised over various things, Yukinoshita sat nonplussed beside me. “I don’t mind. I’ve never really done anything worth being scolded over.”

“Yukinoshita, being scolded isn’t a bad thing. It’s proof that someone’s watching out for you.”

Yukinoshita’s shoulders dropped slightly upon hearing Hiratsuka-sensei’s words. She lowered her head and cast her eyes down. She seemed to be fixated on the floor for no reason I was aware of.

Gently, Hiratsuka-sensei patted Yukinoshita on the shoulder.

“I’m watching out for you, so make as many mistakes as you like.”

My Second Season of Oregairu was Great as Expected, amirite?

Confession time: I still haven’t finished the Oregairu Zoku anime. I do, however, know what happens. The burnout I experienced after spending months translating the light novels prevented me from enjoying the anime on its own terms, so I’ll watch it later when the fuss has died down.

I did enjoy the various lively discussions I had with others about Oregairu throughout its run, though. I think it’s a testament to how well-realised the characters are that viewers inevitably brought their biographies to the discussion. “I was a former Hikki” was a common refrain, especially among fans no longer in high school.

This sequel has resonated particularly with twenty-something-year-olds. It’s no surprise, really – the author Wataru Watari is in his twenties and the later volumes of the light novel are written with a tone of wistful introspection. I get the feeling that Oregairu‘s theme of “we never stop growing up” speaks to those mature enough to be aware that they need to change for the better but still insecure enough to wonder where they are going.

Through Oregairu, I feel as if I got to know the anime blogging/Twitter circle a bit better than I knew it before. In truth, most of the people who write anime criticism are very young in the scheme of things. I would say that early-to-mid twenties is the average age range. They’re pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the fandom, if the IARP fandom survey results are to be believed. Perhaps the only thing that separates “fan” from “critic” in this context is a willingness to analyse themes deeply, but even then, that’s a nebulous distinction.

This was especially the case with Oregairu, where the themes are so personal that oftentimes it was difficult for me to tell where someone’s thematic analysis ended and self-projection began. Now, I’m not a fan of “objective critique” – that is, the attempt to separate personal experience from critical analysis, but I do find myself wondering how a generally older fandom would have approached this material. Would they have reacted so viscerally to the themes? Or would they have focused more on the way those themes are expressed?

After all, it is not as if Oregairu is telling a particularly unique story. Literature is dotted with stories about loneliness and the perpetual struggle for genuine human connection. Only a few months ago, I wrote about Natsume Souseki’s Kokoro, and if I have to be perfectly honest, I think it’s a more profound work than Oregairu is. At the same time, Oregairu speaks to its young, anime-savvy audience in a way that the literary classics don’t.

Perhaps Oregairu is one of those stories that managed to say the right thing to the right people at the right time. It especially stands out in a market saturated with teenage power fantasies. Oregairu had to speak the language of otaku romcoms in order to communicate with its audience, but I’m glad it made the effort to reach out. That’s way more valuable than literary merit alone.

In the end, it really is a good thing that the series has encouraged so much frank discussion and genuine introspection from its viewers. Even if I didn’t enjoy the series itself, I would have been glad that it exists. I learned a lot about those around me just from talking about Oregairu with them. (On that note, here’s a shout-out to Guy who wrote consistently thorough and thoughtful posts about the series every week.)

So what about me? What does Oregairu mean to me? It’s difficult to encapsulate in words, but two quotes come to mind.

The first is by Kurt Vonnegut: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

The other quote is something I wrote in a fanfiction. Readers told me that the story was depressing (and there are things I would change about it if I wrote it today), but I don’t think its outlook was pessimistic. It reflected my own understanding of Oregairu’s themes – that we are good people at heart, forever works in progress. One line, at least, felt important to me when I wrote it:

“Even if it is impossible to truly change, you must always continue to try.”

HO-LY CRAP.

Yes, it has been nine years to this day since I made an account on FanFiction.net. My account is now as old as the average fanfiction writer. Clearly, I must have been feeling patriotic if I chose to make my fanfiction account on the fourth of July. (Yes, yes, the post says it’s the 5th of July, but I’m writing this from the future or at least GMT+10.) Let’s also momentarily disregard the fact that I am an Australian and that my country voted against becoming a republic.

All jokes aside, I feel a weird sort of nostalgia for my fanfiction gig. For me, it’s basically the same thing as writing blog posts or translations. It’s a form of creative fan writing, that’s it. Fanfiction might have a worse reputation, but it’s an art form like any other. If my writing sucks, it has nothing to do with the medium and everything to do with my skill.

Technically, I retired from fanfiction in 2013. I left because fanfic culture is insular as hell and I wanted to try new things. But occasionally, I still get that itch to write fanfiction, because there are some ideas and emotions that are best expressed through fiction.

Here are my user stats for anyone who cares:

Bear in mind that over the years I deleted some stories because they were so abominable. Who knows how high the real word count is?

Also, here is the full list of fandoms I have written for: Chrono Trigger, Inuyasha, Bible, Ranma, Naruto, Prince of Tennis, Evangelion, Professor Layton, Code Geass, Golden Sun, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, World Ends With You, Hunter X Hunter, Tales of Symphonia, Tsubasa Chronicle, Hikaru no Go, Gundam Seed, Eureka Seven, Kuroshitsuji, Card Captor Sakura, Tales of Graces, Legend of Zelda, Chihayafuru, Kimi to Boku, Kuroko no Basuke, Kimi ni Todoke, Haruhi Suzumiya series, Hyouka, Sket Dance, Sword Art Online, AnoHana, My Little Monster, Special A, Fullmetal Alchemist, Pet Girl of Sakurasou, My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute, Barakamon, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Aldnoah Zero, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and Durarara!!

…Yeah, I was pretty busy there for those last nine years.

A Short List of Noteworthy Fanfiction

For reasons I still can’t entirely fathom, my stories were most popular with the SAO fandom. My most popular story overall was Double-Edged Sword, a “what if” story where Kirito is the damsel in distress. You can tell it was a NaNoWriMo novel because two of the battles last for three entire chapters each.

My two Suguha-centric oneshots, Game Over and Reset, were also popular. Reset was about Suguha pining for her oniichan’s dick, while Game Over dealt with the heavier theme of euthanasia. Neither makes for feel-good reading, I must admit.

The other fandom I found mild success in was Kurobasu. The Legend of Kuroman was a series of humorous sketches, featuring a running gag about Kuroko being a superhero who saves the world from the shadows. My personal favourite was Equilibrium in Vertigo, which serves as a (non-canon) prequel to the anime series proper. The story was about Aomine and Momoi’s strained friendship and was as accurate a depiction of the confusions of adolescence as I could muster.

My most “literary” fanfiction is The End of the Affair, which I have mentioned a couple of times already on this blog. It was also my most polarising work of fiction to date, in that it made people on Anime Suki mad. One reviewer described it as “if Urobuchi wrote a rom-com”, which never fails to make me laugh. I also thought it was amusing when someone on Reddit called it “a fanfic for yukino shippers“.

Looking back, the foundations of The End of the Affair lie in an earlier fic: Tatsuta River (Chihayafuru). The story is bleaker and the prose is less refined, but it deals with similar themes. There’s also The Colorless Green (Sakurasou), which is an adult future fic as well, but miraculously doesn’t end with suffering.

Finally, there’s my most recent story Knight and Princess (Aldnoah Zero), which is still an ongoing work of feminist propaganda.

My advice to aspiring fanfiction writers? Read widely and try to write outside your comfort zone. Also, read reviews and criticism, not just about fanfiction but about the series that you are writing about. Bonus points if you write your own criticism as well.

Shipping is not everything. If you like romance, go ahead and write it, but don’t feel the need to base your story around pairings simply because everyone else is doing it.

Being “in-character” is not everything. A strong author’s voice is far more important. If you want to find out if your characterisation is consistent, you should show your story to someone who is unfamiliar with the fandom you are writing about. If they can grasp the overall tone of your story and the personalities of the characters, then you’ve succeeded in writing “in-character” in the way that matters.

Plan your shit. You don’t have to write a step-by-step outline or multiple appendices, but at least have an idea of what you’re doing and how you’re going to get there.

Mary Sue litmus tests are full of crap. Badly written original characters usually piss readers off because everyone else in the story acts inconsistently. Focus on internal consistency and believable relationships between the characters and I guarantee that none (or barely any) of your original character’s surface traits will make them seem “Mary Sue-ish”.

And finally, remember that your OTP is shit. I mean it. If you can’t imagine your OTP not being together, it’s a shit OTP. People are individuals with complex desires before they are one half of a couple. Try to understand the people you write about. Try to empathise.

You’ve probably already heard this news, but here it is again: The Oregairu LN has been licensed by Yen Press.

This is not necessarily happy news for everyone, hence the graphic at the top of this post. Not everyone will have access to the official release when it is eventually published in 2016. There are fans who are very upset over this. Just take a visit to Kyakka if you want see evidence of this for yourself.

Here’s the official statement we released on the Nano Desu Oregairu site:

Today, we have some momentous news! Oregairu has been licensed by Yen Press!

Here at Nano Desu, we support the official release one hundred per cent and we recommend that you buy it when it becomes available.

So what does that mean for the fan translation project here? Because the official translation won’t be released until 2016, we have still not worked out what will happen over the next few months. It is also in our interest to keep translations accessible for those who may not have access to official releases, so we are trying our best to work through this matter.

Please stay tuned for further updates in the weeks to come.

If that statement sounds vague, that’s because it’s supposed to sound that way. There’s been a lot of talk behind the scenes at Nano Desu, and not all of us agree about what to do. We’re not taking down the content from the site right away, but in all likelihood we will take down the translations before the first volume is released officially. Whatever happens, I will keep you posted on both blogs.

As for my personal reaction to the licensing? As long as Yen Press’s release is nothing like the abomination that was the No Game No Life translation, I’m all for it. I look forward to purchasing the professional translation and seeing where I can learn from it. I particularly wonder how the cultural references and Hachiman’s “voice” will come across in their version.

(There’s an elephant in the room here, and that elephant is called ETHICS IN LIGHT NOVEL TRANSLATION. There’s an interesting conversation to be had here about Yen Press’s conservative business model and the limitations of intellectual property laws in the digital era. But that’s a post for another day.)

In other news, I have started working on Qualidea seriously, so expect a release very soon!

In other other news, who else is watching Wimbledon?

As I mentioned two weeks ago, Yen Press has licensed the Oregairu light novel. I promised to keep you updated on the fan translation project, so here’s the official announcement from the website:

I have written this post to confirm that, yes, we are taking down all the material from this site, as per Nano Desu policy. The unrelease schedule is as follows:

8/15 – Volume 1 will be taken down, including the ePub/PDF
9/15 – Volumes 2-4 ePubs/PDFs will be taken down
10/15 – Volumes 2-4 text will be taken down

Apologies for the late announcement. We reached out to Yen Press in an attempt to have some input on the terminology/translation conventions in the official release. We were unable to come to any agreement, however. In any case, we at Nano Desu support the Yen Press release, and we sincerely hope that you purchase the light novel when it becomes available.

In any case, it’s been a lot of fun translating Oregairu. I feel that I learned a lot as a translator from working on that series and I don’t regret any of the time I spent on it. In the meantime, I’ve started another translation project: Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin. I sincerely hope you check it out!

P.S. It should go without saying that we do not approve of piracy. Please do not distribute our translations past the removal date. Any comments containing download links will be deleted.

So, uh, yeah, as you can imagine, there’s a story behind that whole “we contacted Yen Press” subplot. It would have been nice to have some influence on the official translation, if only for consistency’s sake, but it’s understandable that an official publishing company would reject any affiliation with a fan translation group. They would only have agreed to a collaboration if our group took down every translation, even the series not licensed by any English-speaking distribution company (which is every single project, by the way). So that was the end of that.

But oh well, no harm done, I guess. On balance, I think that more is gained than lost through official licensing, even if it does mean that some readers will be unable to access the material. The English light novel world is still in flux, so my hope is that in years to come, more light novel translations will remain easily accessible online even after licensing, perhaps via eBooks or on a pay-to-read basis.

The other thing I would like to see is more alternatives to Yen Press in the market. At the moment, they do seem to have a monopoly on most of the high-profile releases. For better or worse, they’re the ones who set the standard in terms of translation quality and scheduling. It’s true that their releases tend to outstrip fan translations in both regards, but that’s not fair competition.

Anyway, those are my personal thoughts on the matter. Once again, please support the official release!

Hey, guys.

You might have noticed I haven’t been posting as often lately. I could say I’ve been busy and this would be true, but the real reason is that I’ve been choosing to watch less anime. I’m more of a casual watcher these days. Could it be that I have become a riajuu???

No love life in sight, however.

Seriously, though, I’ve been pouring a lot of that time and energy I used to dedicate for fandom-related stuff into things like volunteering and activism. I’ve also been working on my honours thesis, which is coming along quite well despite the mountain of reading it involves. Overall, I am pretty happy and satisfied with my life right now.

Of course, I’d love to post more often. When I do make the time to watch anime, I still really enjoy it a lot. I just started watching Gundam Unicorn, which is pretty cool, even to someone who has never watched UC Gundam. There’s also a bunch of light novels I really want to read. (Did I mention I’m writing my thesis about light novels?) So yeah, don’t assume I’ve lost any of my passion for this fandom, even if I’ve been less active lately.

One thing that sucks about not being active is that I haven’t been able to respond to all the blogger nominations I’ve received recently. So I thought I’d round them up and respond to them all at once. Thanks to Black Ragdoll at Absolutely Anime, Lazarinth at Fantasy and Anime, leaveit2me at Popculturemecha, Neomo at Neomo and Anime and fiddletwix at The Anime Madhouse!

We’d be here all day if I answered every single question, so I thought I’d just answer two questions from each Sunshine Blog/Liebster award and write two facts for each Creative Blogger award. Here we go:

1. To what degree do you separate your blog content and personal life, and why?

I see my blogging as an extension of real life. It’s always important to remember that there’s a human behind every keyboard. That’s why I try to conduct myself online the same way I would offline. In other words, I’m a confirmed dork irl.

At the same time, I don’t tend to talk much about my blog irl. Some of my friends read it, but I know they’re not really interested in all the nerdy analysis I do.

So I guess you could say the blog is an important outlet for me, but still separate from my day-to-day life.

2. If you could be anyone else, who would you be (real or fake)?

Me, but richer.

3. If you could be Liam Neeson in any movie he has been in, which movie would it be?

This is an obscure one, but After Life. He plays this owner of a funeral home who gets to talk to people after they’ve died. It’s a bit freaky and would no doubt get tiring after a while, but it’s one of Neeson’s more fascinating roles.

4. Are you frustrated how online streamers don’t release the material you want?

You bet! In Australia, we seem to get the short end of the stick, since not all Crunchyroll shows are viewable over here. Luckily, we do have AnimeLab, which is a pretty good streaming service for people in Australia and New Zealand. The translation quality is a bit shit, but you could say that about every anime streaming service, tbh.

That said, I’d probably be more frustrated about this situation if I kept up with the latest shows.

On another note, did you know that Australia leads the world at pirating Game of Thrones? Just what you’d expect from a nation of convicts.

5. Do you think the mainstream West will ever understand Japanese media?

Honestly, I doubt even anime fans understand Japanese media. I sure don’t. I mean, what does it mean to “understand” media? Do you need a degree in media studies or what? And then there’s the problematic conception of the West versus Japan…

Putting that all aside, if you’re asking whether anime will ever be mainstream in my country, my confident answer would be no. There was an interesting column on Answerman about this in the context of North America, but the situation is pretty similar for Australia. To put it simply, the TV broadcasting system is ridiculously difficult for foreign markets to penetrate directly. It’s also a slowly dying beast. These days broadcasters know that the only safe investments are football and the news. Anything marginally different gets relegated to our cable network, Foxtel, which is stupidly expensive, especially compared to cable in America.

Fortunately, the rise of digital distribution and online streaming renders the issue of “mainstream” relatively moot. And that’s a good thing! The breakdown of traditional media flows lets all sorts of alternative outlets flourish.

On the other hand, you still have to go out of your way if you want to learn about Japan and other Asian countries. The West’s cultural hegemony will have to end before that can change on a large scale. It’s naive to expect that simply knowing about anime will make you more culturally aware, after all.

6. Why do you write about anime and what’s your goal when it comes to this?

The obvious answer is “because it’s fun!” but I think I do have deeper goals as well.

Namely, cross-cultural communication. I’d like to promote a deeper, more critical awareness of anime and its place in the world. As a translator, I feel that I have an obligation to help build this awareness. I’m not just talking about spreading translations or spouting facts about Japan. I firmly believe that everyone should become more sensitive about matters of cultural difference. It’s too easy to misunderstand in all sorts of contexts, so I try to listen to other perspectives sincerely and I encourage others to do the same.

At the same time, I should emphasise that I do not know everything. One of the main reasons I write on a blog and communicate with my readers is so that I can learn lots of new things as well. A big thanks to everyone who contributes.

But yeah, anime is fun! You can’t find a better reason than that.

And now for four facts about me. Or more like four facts I learned while working on my thesis.

1. Google Translate translates roughly 1 million books worth of text in one day. [SOURCE]
2. Machine translation was first invented primarily to make it easier for the U.S. to spy on Russia. There was a severe shortage of Russian language speakers working for the U.S. military and the CIA at the time.
3. The Japanese scholar Hitoshi Igarashi was stabbed to death in 1991, presumably for translating The Satanic Verses.
4. The Japanese website “Let’s Become a Novelist!” (where hit series like Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei were first published) now probably gets over a billion views a month. The creators have never openly advertised the website; they built their reputation solely through word of mouth. [SOURCE]

Now, nominations. The rules say you have to nominate 10-20 blogs, but I’ll just do seven for now:

Anime Monographia

Mage in a Barrel

Anime Vios

The Beautiful World

Therefore It is

The Objective Opinion

Falconhaxx

Basically, just do what I did: answer the six questions I answered and list four facts about yourself (or about anything). Alternatively, you can check out the blogs that gave me the awards and try out their format. I’m not really fussed. Just try to have fun.

For anyone else reading this, you can answer the questions in the comments or on your own blog. Feel free to hop in!

…I’d have to go with Hachiman x Hayama.

It’s kinda rare for this sort of light novel series to feature male supporting characters of any real consequence. Usually, they’re either the MC’s generic friend, a joke character or some moustache-twirling villain.

It’s rarer still for a mainstream light novel series to depict a nuanced relationship between the male MC and another male character. I mean, it’s rare for the relationships with the female characters to be all that nuanced either, but at least the girls get attention. In light novels, it’s like there are no guys but the MC. I know I’m painting LNs with a broad brush here and that there are plenty of exceptions (Eugeo x Kirito, anyone?), but let’s face it. No one reads LNs for the BL.

I personally think that this is unfair. I demand equal representation when it comes to shipping!

That’s why I thank God for Oregairu. Since most of the characters, including the male ones, are extremely well-written, it is possible to ship BL without sticking two cardboard cutouts together.

I used to ship Hachiman x Totsuka, but their relationship ended up becoming stale, so I had pretty much abandoned ship entirely by the time season 2 started. Hachiman x Hayama is superior in every way because the two characters change as people and challenge each other in meaningful ways. Their rivalry reminds me of something from a shonen manga, and we all know that people read shonen manga for the BL.

…I say all this, but I don’t actually ship the Oregairu characters that much in general.

These kids are so awkward that they can barely handle regular friendships, let alone romance, so I honestly can’t imagine what would happen if they started dating. I’m not just talking about Hachiman here, by the way. I love how Watari Wataru doesn’t conflate “genuine human connection” with romance, even when it’s evident that the relationships between some characters are not platonic either. It’s genuinely interesting how this series goes to great lengths to show why people choose not to be in a relationship despite wanting connection.

This is why I like the interactions between Hachiman and Hayama. Hachiman is the loner while Hayama is the popular guy, but they’re not so different at heart. They both reject intimacy while simultaneously wishing for something “genuine”, even if they act on their desires in completely different ways. Hachiman plays the villain while Hayama plays the nice guy, but they’re both desperately doing this to preserve the status quo. And they both resent each other, or at least can’t bring themselves to like each other even when they admit their respect. It’s a really fascinating dynamic.

I think in any other show I would have shipped the hell out of them, but it doesn’t feel quite right here either. But, well, what do you expect from a show called My Teen Romantic Comedy is Wrong as Expected?

(Note: This is a translation of the interview featured on the Dash x Bunko website.)

A peaceful hour in front of the round table. Who knows what will happen after this…?

Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin (Kuzu to Kinka no Qualidea, or Kuzukin for short) has created quite a stir after getting a second printing straight after its publication in January. Now that Tachibana Koushi has announced his involvement, this ambitious “shared world” project involving multiple light novel labels will now begin in earnest! Our newcomer Tachibana Koushi-sensei joins in to explain the full details behind his involvement in this mysterious project! Don’t miss this chaotic public roundtable discussion filled with explosive statements (?!)

The overly friendly (?!) relationship between the three authors

Editor: So I want to ask you about Project Qualidea. To start things off, do authors who write for different labels like you do often hang out together?

Tachibana Koushi (henceforth T): Yeah, it’s pretty normal.

Sagara Sou (henceforth S): It might only be a certain fraction of people who do it, though…

Editor: How did you three meet specifically?

T: The normal way, I think. We made our first contact at a drinking party held by the older writers.

S: But what about these days? Are there that many drinking parties?

T: There are, but I don’t really turn up when I get busy.

S: I get the feeling I don’t get invi-

T: They’re just looking out for you because they think you’re busy!

S: But I do recall meeting up with a bunch of other new writers and asking questions to the more experienced writers.

Watari Wataru (henceforth W): I was never invited.

Everyone: (laughs)

T: There used to be a mixi group for new writers…

W: I used mixi, but I was never part of a group.

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Aren’t you being too in-character straight off the bat?!

Editor: When was the first time you met?

T: I first met Watari-san at a drinking party. After that, I brought Sagara-san along. That’s where it happened, I suppose.

Editor: Is that when he got insulted on social media? (laughs)

S: Oh, right! I wrote about it in the Kuzukin afterword, but I mentioned that I read Watari Wataru’s blog, and then he went out of his way to insult me on his blog. (laughs)

T: This guy didn’t badmouth you behind your back. He knew perfectly well that you read his blog, so he posted it right where you could see it.

W: I’m not a big fan of backstabbing.

S: Riiiiight. (deadpan)

Editor: So you met up frequently after that?

S: We sure did. We became best buddies. My senpai writers even invited me to their homes and so on.

They started planning the project after just one day?!

Editor: All right, so what made you get a start on “Project Qualidea”?

T: I think it was when we started drinking. This was about two or three years ago. We’re all around the same age, so I said let’s do something interesting while we’re in our twenties.

S: So then we wanted to make a shared world.

Editor: It will be a crossover between the labels you all work for, where the stories share the same setting and backstory. Has the setting and plot for all of Project Qualidea been decided yet?

S: Tachibana Koushi said we should use the post-apocalyptic setting. He said that he could only write this sort of setting. I’m just a scenario writer here.

T: That’s the first time I’ve heard that. (laughs)

W: I hear the words of His Lord Tachibana Koushi from above and pass them along to Sagara-san, who transcribes them word-for-word…

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Hold on a minute! We rented out a conference room and brainstormed ideas on a whiteboard, all three of us.

S: And after that, we went drinking in Shinjuku and that’s where the story took shape. You said, “Oh man, this bar is closing for today, so what are we gonna do?!” Then you said, “Oh, screw it!” and continued the brainstorming at a business hotel.

T: I swore I asked you if it was okay since there weren’t any trains at that hour.

W: When I said, “I’ll take a taxi home,” you guys were like, “Are you suuuuuure…?”

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Then we spent about four hours together. We all wracked our brains right until the moment we nodded off.

W: In the meantime, Sagara-san hogged the toilet.

Editor: Why?! (laughs)

W: He said his stomach hurt. So basically it was Tachibana Koushi who decided everything.

T: Somehow, I get the feeling you’re pinning all the responsibility on me. (laughs)

Editor: So you pretty much decided all the worldbuilding in one day?

T: Yeah, but it was a really rough sketch.

The Hidden Story behind the Birth of Kuzukin

The first Project Qualidea work to be published. What unexpected hidden story lies behind its birth…?!

Editor: Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin was created as a prologue to the world’s setting, wasn’t it?

The authors: Weeeeeeell…

Editor: Oh? (laughs) I thought it was a kind of prequel to the project’s main story? It fits into the timeline like a kind of episode 0.

W: I dunno about that. I’m kinda fuzzy on the contents…

T: Says the one who wrote it. (laughs)

S: It was meant to be that way, but then things got complicated with the timeline… I think that lots of eye-opening things happen at the end of the story and that things will get clearer as more books related to the project come out. I hope that the ambiguous epilogue and suggestive chapter openings spark people’s imaginations and leaves them eager for more.

The colour frontispiece depicting the shocking conclusion. Just what happens after this…?

W: More like those chapter openings are the main story.

T: Then incorporate that into the novel itself! (laughs)

Do the mysterious chapter openings foreshadow the rest of the project’s plot?!

Editor: Was Sagara-san the one who came up with Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin’s structure and plot developments?

W: It was all Sagara Sou’s doing.

S: I was guided by His Lord Tachibana Koushi from above.

T: I got a call from Watari Wataru in the middle of the night.

W: I told him to think up a plot and then hung up. (laughs)

Editor: (laughs)

T: Actually, I had almost nothing to do with Kuzukin. Watching those two bicker back and forth, I figured it was more amusing to keep my mouth shut. And then I was shocked by what they came up with. I was like, what the hell is this?! (laughs) Far from telling the episode 0 story I imagined, it only advanced the plot about 0.7-0.8 per cent. If you put it in perspective, it was closer to 0.01 per cent. (laughs) No, wait, it really was an episode 0!

S: It all hinged on Tachibana Koushi’s input.

W: If it’s all Tachi-san’s plot, then he should’ve kept in touch with us!

T: C’mon. (laughs)

Editor: Wow, this really feels like you were improvising. So now it’s clear that Tachi-san was behind the ending of Kuzukin and the mysterious chapter openings.

T: Errrr… not quite. (laughs) That wasn’t me, it was something that the Watari-san and Sagara-san gradually incorporated later. So there you go, please look forward to it.

Sagara-san is Watari-san’s professional girlfriend?!

Editor: Say what you will about Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin, but Sagara-san and Watari-san’s “co-author” model makes it an innovative work.

T: Actually, I’d question whether this method of writing a book is all that unusual. Not the whole writing a novel like a relay thing, but two people writing a story with the same overarching plot.

S: I figured that if we called it an experiment, nobody would mind if it was crap…

Everyone: (laughs)

W: But on the subject of co-authorship, it’s the most fun I’ve had.

S: Yep. I wouldn’t do it any differently.

T: So how did you actually write it?

W: Well, whenever Sagara-san finished writing a part, I started asking him passive-aggressive interview questions like, “What are you going to do about this?”

S: Then I’d cry and tell him, “Fine. I’ll rewrite it.”

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Ah, but I kinda remember saying at a meeting that the whole “love you for your appearance” thing is like pure love when you really think about it. No matter what happens, you’ll stay with that person forever. “Why are we together?” “Because I like your face.” That has to be pure love! That was the only thing that never changed even in the end.

S: Towards the end I was like a wife who lives in another house but visits her husband all the time. I was going to Watari Wataru’s workplace and doing all the writing there. And when I said I’d finished writing and put my work in the dropbox, Watari Wataru would open the door next to me and say, “Look, you,” every time. (laughs)

T: These two are sharing a room together. (laughs)

W: We’re not sharing a room, but Sagara-san never seems to go home for some weird reason. At first he said he’d go home at around 11 at night, which he did. After that, he went home later and later, and now he’s here all the time.

T: Can’t you see he wants to be with you! (laughs)

Editor: Before you knew it, you were cohabitating. The message you two published before the book came out also had a story about you going to an inn in Hakone together.

T: Did they seriously go there? Going on a trip to Hakone together, visiting each other at work all the time, you’ve got to be having sex. (laughs)

S: See, once pretty much all the deadlines were over, I said, “See ya later,” to Watari Wataru on the doorstep of his workplace, and then I went to an internet café.

T: What a convenient girl you are. A professional girlfriend!

S: I couldn’t think of one reason why I had to go home.

Everyone: (laughs)

T: Well, Sagara-san’s heart is in the internet café, just like a beloved hometown.

W: He should just get a taxi home. Although I seriously don’t get the point of that either.

S: The words “stay the night” do exist, you know.

W: There’d be trouble if I didn’t let you go home.

T: Just as you guys are getting completely love dovey, the wife’s secret lover appears—me. (laughs)

Editor: So then it became a threesome? A three-way co-authorship, I mean.

W: Aren’t Tachi-san and Sagara-san letting themselves go a bit much? I couldn’t possibly think of any other combination.

S: Oh, so now you’re disowning us. (laughs) But, you know, if we did write a three-way novel, Tachibana Koushi would end up writing everything for sure.

W: Yeah, probably.

T: Quit it, you guys! (laughs)

W: I mean, let’s just be honest here. It didn’t pay off well.

Editor: Say what?!

Everyone: (laughs)

W: I mean, seriously, I get the feeling that if one person wrote it they’d get the job done quicker. That goes both ways.

S: You procrastinate all the time when you write by yourself…

W: You can’t win in this world. What I did understand was that what Sagara-san wrote didn’t match what I wrote. Especially that heroine… Seriously, I could not get my head around her. (laughs)

The Birth of the Legendary Heroine Johannes!

The psychopathic and controversial heroine of Kuzukin: Chigusa Yuu.

Editor: Almost all the reader comments were about the heroine Chigusa Yuu (AKA Johannes). She really made quite an impact.

T: To be honest, just reading the start of Yuu’s parts kinda made me want to stay away from whoever wrote it. (laughs)

S: Was she that bad?!

Editor: Was Yuu modelled on anybody?

S: Watari Wataru!

W: Shut up.

Everyone: (laughs)

W: The readers think of me as an upstanding member of society, so they probably didn’t make the connection.

S: Well, see, the book was written to debunk that idea. (laughs) It shows how Watari Wataru is different from his media image—the real Watari Wataru is like this.

T: Now that you mention it, there are some resemblances. (laughs) When Yuu insults Haruma by saying, “Even a person like him deferred to someone. It’s amazing what school does to a person,” that’s the kind of thing Watari-san says a lot. Why are his putdowns so excellent?

S: Why did you say such a terrible thing?

W: Oh yeah, I did kinda add that part at the final stages. It’s like, huh? Was it needed that much?

T: But when you read it all the way to the end, it’s weird how she still seems cute. She’s such an overpowering heroine that in any other work you wouldn’t get behind her and it’d be unreadable, but she had Haruma (the protagonist: Kusaoka Haruma) wrapped around her little finger.

The story’s protagonist (upper left). At first glance he looks like scum, but he has a surprisingly sensitive side…?

S: It was supposed to be that Watari Wataru would do Haruma’s parts and I would do Yuu’s parts, but whenever our own character had lines in the other writer’s part, Watari Wataru would almost always come to me, saying, “I can’t write Yuu’s lines.”

W: I could write her lines in the second half of the story, when her relationship with Haruma was developing, but at first I was absolutely stuck.

T: Even though she’s your brainchild. (laughs) Before you knew it, you ended up writing her as a complete monster.

W: Towards the end, I finally started thinking of Johannes as our child. At first, I was seriously thinking, I gotta fix up the bastard who wrote this.

Everyone: (laughs)

S: Haruma is a stand-in for the readers, so as Haruma warmed on Yuu, Watari Wataru warmed on Yuu as well.

Editor: On the other hand, Haruma is the sane one, relatively speaking.

W: Well, you know, he had a lot on his plate. In Haruma’s case, anyone would look like an upstanding individual next to Johannes.

T: He’s a tsukkomi character, after all. But that’s why I think he ended up as a different character from Oregairu’s Hachiman.

Editor: Johannes tears things down; Haruma keeps them together. It really does seem like Haruma was the one who had his hand on the rudder the entire story.

W: The rudder he tried to grab turned out to be broken.

Everyone: (laughs)

Editor: But a really beautiful theme came to the fore at the very end. I thought it was wonderful how you managed the landing so well.

W: Ahh, yes, that was the last day. It just came out that way. It was the only way we could do the story.

T: That’s really impressive. This story gives off a “two skilled authors went down to business on the endless, filler-ish plot” sort of image. It’s not the first time I’ve thought this, but you two are way too good at writing.

Editor: Indeed, I was also stunned by how two authors with such different styles were able to collaborate.

W: I suppose there aren’t that many authors who make strong statements through their writing. The fact that we were saying, “what do I know about what you wrote?” to each other came across loud and clear. (laughs)

Editor: Oh, I see. The “co” in “co-authorship” must be short for “confused”.

T: Or maybe “collision course”. (laughs)

S: My father read Kuzukin and said, “This Watari Wataru guy sure can write.” And then he read my parts and said, “This is just like Murakami Haruki.”

Editor: That’s a great compliment!

S: Well, the problem is that my father hates Murakami Haruki.

Everyone: (uproarious laughter)

T: What’s with the roundabout insult? (laughs)

W: Like father like son, eh?

T: I think Sagara-san must have learned something from his father to be able to write Yuu the way he did. (laughs)

Editor: So who’s your favourite Kuzukin character, everybody?

W: I like Johannes in the scenes where I don’t have to write her. When I do have to write her, I think to myself, “What is up with this chick?” (laughs)

S: I like Johannes… too… I guess…?

Editor: That didn’t sound very confident. (laughs)

S: I mean, I put the protagonist aside and think of him as the audience stand-in whenever I write, so Johannes is far and away the easiest to write.

T: So all the hating comes from Watari Wataru. (laughs)

Editor: What about you, Tachi-san?

T: I guess I like Johannes as well, when I think about it… Is that laying it on too thick?

Editor: No, this must mean that she is a memorable heroine in both name and substance. (laughs)

S: I’d like to write her again sometime.

W: I’d like to read about her while having nothing to do with the writing.

S: C’mon. (laughs)

Against all odds, everyone supports Johannes. Maybe the face does count for everything…?

The Future of Project Qualidea

Editor: The readers have many questions they’d like to ask you, so let’s start with the first one: what is “Speakeasy”?

S: That’s our unit name. When we came up with the story, that’s the name of the kind of businesses we often frequented, for some reason.

W: Well, he’s not wrong.

T: Sure he is. (laughs) That’s our unit name, so we plan to release any future books for this project under that name.

S: It appears as if “scum” describes Haruma and “gold coin” describes Yuu’s obsession with money, although in reality both of them describe Yuu.

T: She really is a domineering heroine. (laughs)

S: Wasn’t the original title “Qualidea of the Radiant World”? We changed it just before it got published, though.

W: You really know your stuff, huh?

S: I don’t think you know it, but I actually wrote the title as well.

W: Seriously?!

Everyone: (laughs)

Editor: What about Qualidea?

W: Qualidea is whatever you think it is.

T: That sounds like an urban legend. (laughs) Qualidea has a lot of meanings, but that’s something that’ll be made clear in this project down the track, so look forward to it.

S: There are honestly a lot of things I’d like to say, but it’s too early right now, so I regretfully apologise. But we’ve prepared a lot of shocking twists, so the first order of business is to keep an eye on Tachi-san’s work.

T: So much pressure. (laughs)

Editor: The hype is escalating! Finally, do you have any messages for all the readers out there?

W: Oregairu season 2-

T: Shut up! (laughs)

S: First of all, I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t read Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin yet to go pick up a copy.

W: We’ll continue the series if we sell X amount of copies.

T: Stop! That’s too real. (laughs) There will be lots of Project Qualidea books coming out in 2015 including Kuzukin, so I hope you all look forward to following the series!

Editor: Thank you for lending us your time today!

Translator’s Commentary: You can read my English translation of Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin here. As of the time of this writing, the first five chapters have been uploaded, although I have finished the draft of the entire novel. Expect the full release early next year.

For those of you unfamiliar with the authors involved, Watari Wataru wrote Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Come wa Machigatteiru, Sagara Sou wrote Hentai Ouji to Warawanai Neko and Tachibana Koushi wrote Date a Live.

So far, the Qualidea project consists of the following media products:

• Qualidea of Scum and a Gold Coin (light novel) by Watari Wataru and Sagara Sou [IN STORES NOW]
• Itsuka Sekai wo Sukuu Tame ni -Qualidea Code- vol. 1 (light novel) by Tachibana Koushi [IN STORES NOW]
• Sonna Sekai wa Kowashite shimae -Qualidea Code- vol. 1 (light novel) by Sagara Sou [IN STORES NOW]
• Itsuka Sekai wo Sukuu Tame ni -Qualidea Code- vol. 2 (light novel) by Tachibana Koushi [RELEASE DATE: 1/20/2016]
• An untitled story by Watari Wataru covering the “Chiba arc” (light novel) [RELEASE DATE UNKNOWN]
• Qualidea Code (manga) published in Jump SQ magazine [RELEASE DATE: 2016]
• Qualidea Code (anime) produced by A-1 Pictures [RELEASE DATE UNKNOWN]

Additionally, there will be an interview with the three authors in the February 2016 edition of Newtype magazine. I will try to get my hands on it so that I can translate it. I hope that this interview will clarify the relationship between the upcoming anime and the light novels. There appear to be some inconsistencies between the anime characters and the light novel characters, so my suspicion is that the anime tells an original story based on the LN’s setting and premise.

If you have any further questions about the project, feel free to ask and I will answer as best I can. Bear in mind, however, that not much information is actually known about the series yet. Nevertheless, I will try to keep abreast with all the developments related to this project and keep you posted with accurate information. For now, enjoy this cool key visual:

Hello, everybody! It’s that time of the year again! Time for anime bloggers to write long posts and poop on each other’s tastes.

This year, it was surprisingly easy to throw together a top 5 anime list. You see, I only finished about 5 anime. As I will explain in tomorrow’s post, this has a lot to do with my shifting interests as a blogger. If you want opinions on the latest shows, there are plenty of other blogs and reviewing sites you can go to. Personally, I don’t think that I add much new to the discussion.

But oh well, this post is for anime, so here we go!

5. Noragami Aragoto

It’s nice when a sequel surpasses the original.

Noragami is one of those series that touches on a lot of interesting ideas, like the fading relevance of Shintoism in Japan, but never really ties them together. So while the series was always competently put together, it never truly struck a chord with me.

The second season was a significant step up from the first season because it builds its conflicts around the relationships between gods and humans. The Bishamon arc is all about communication and people withholding their personal problems because they don’t want to make problems for others, which ironically causes bigger problems for everyone. Not only is this a theme that I’m pretty sure everyone can relate with to some degree, it’s relevant to the god/human theme as well, because gods operate on a different level than humans. The second arc is about Yato deciding he wants to become someone who can serve humans, which is a nice way of tying all the story threads together.

Unfortunately, the anime ends with one of those accursed “read the manga” endings, so I guess I’ll have to read the manga to see how it all ends up.

4. Akagami no Shirayuki-hime

appropriant ended up verbalising my thoughts on this anime better than I could, but Akagami no Shirayuki-hime really is a very relaxing anime to watch, and sometimes that’s all you need. I’m a big fan of the shojo aesthetic but not so much a fan of the SHENANIGANS, which is probably the big reason why Shirayuki-hime hit all my sweet spots with uncanny accuracy. While it was never the kind of show that challenged me, it never bored me either. And it never failed to put a smile on my face.

By the way, I don’t actually care that much about the two MCs, but Obi is awesome. I hope the side characters get more love in the second season. I’m hyped.

3. Aldnoah.Zero

Aldnoah Seed Destiny???

Aldnoah.Zero 2 ended up being rather unpopular with pretty much everyone except the Slaine-loving crowd on Tumblr. I enjoyed it, but holy crap, Slaine was an asshole. What the heck happened? He doesn’t even look good in those count clothes. Bring back the old Slaine, I say!

Anyway, I enjoyed this iteration of Aldnoah.Zero mostly because I love Lemrina so much. And also, there was so much delicious NTR at the end. This show really delivered what I wanted out of it.

On a more serious note, I think I ended up enjoying this series more than most anime fans because I spent more time engaging with it. I translated one of the novels and even wrote fanfiction (lol). As a result, I spent way more time thinking about this series than any of the others I watched this year. It’s not that I don’t see the flaws in the storytelling. I just ended up getting more out of the show because I put more into it.

I also had some really interesting discussions about this show with Karice, who is a bigger Aldnoah fan than I am and is quite knowledgeable about its production history. If nothing else, I hope you at least check out her post about Gen Urobuchi’s involvement in the series, which should clear up more than a few misconceptions about how Aldnoah was made (and how anime writing “works” in general). At any rate, it’s clear that all the staff put a lot of effort into making Aldnoah.Zero. It’s the kind of show that I appreciate more after rewatching it a few times. There’s a lot of nuance that I simply didn’t notice the first time around, especially with the visuals.

2. Sound! Euphonium

Hey guys, did you know that I used to play the oboe in my high school concert band? Yep, it’s true. I was the best oboist the school ever had in its entire history. (Also the only oboist, but that’s unimportant.) My history as a band nerd is one of the many reasons why Sound! Euphonium has a special place in my heart. But it’s not the only reason I love it so much.

At its heart, Eupho is a coming of age story, and its theme of finding purpose in a seemingly mundane activity resonated with me in a similar way Hyouka did, although not quite on such an intense personal level. Eupho is also an ensemble story; it’s a story about the band and the people who participate. While the focus of this season was mostly on Kumiko, many of the background characters were shown to be struggling with their own problems. This gave the impression that the band consists of people whose stories remain half-told, much like the bands I’ve been involved with in real life. There was no single character I identified with, but I was equally interested in them all.

Overall, Eupho is a nice show. It makes me nostalgic about high school. I’m looking forward to season 2 because the story we did get felt very much incomplete, and I heard the oboe girl will get attention next season.

(I also have a hot take on Kumiko x Reina, if you’re interested.)

1. Oregairu Zoku

There was never any doubt about what would top my list. Oregairu is one of my favourite series of all time, after all. I feel like I know it inside out at this stage.

Still, I was pretty burnt out on Oregairu after translating the light novels. I actually only got around to watching the second season earlier this month, but it was good stuff. In particular, I’d like to say that Hayama is the best guy and that he really needs more love and attention.

At the same time, I will have to admit that I’ve gotten everything I needed out of this series already. I’ve said everything I wanted to say. I do plan to read and summarise volume 12 for all the fans out there, but I am genuinely not all that interested in what happens next. I just hope that Watari’s subsequent projects don’t keep retreading the same characterisation and themes. I’d really like to see him try something new, something that isn’t entrenched in the point of view of the cynical loner. And no, Qualidea does not count as “something new”.

(On an unrelated note, it was a nice surprise to see my Oregairu fanfiction get a TV Tropes page this year! It seems that the story has had some lasting appeal, considering that I finished it over a year ago.)

A year-end favourite anime list is never complete without any mention of the top waifus and husbandos of the year. I don’t have Kai’s dedication to write 12 days of waifu posts, but you can nevertheless count on me to have strong opinions about waifus and husbandos.

My waifu of the year is Lemrina from Aldnoah.Zero, if it wasn’t clear enough already from all the gushing I’ve done so far. My runner-up waifu is Katou from Saekano, so give her a hand.

Katou really made the Saekano experience for me. She’s not a terribly complex character; honestly, she’s remains a cipher throughout the entire series, but hey, she’s cute. And she was memorable too. It was a genius idea to put a non-tropey character in a trope-y show, although I’m not sure I agree with the implication that Katou is what a “normal girl” would act like in the company of otaku stereotypes. Her flat characterisation works for the show and is the source of some great jokes, so I’m okay with it, though.

Also, beret!Katou > ponytail!Katou. Deal with it.

As for my husbando of the year, I spent more time pondering over this one. The Haikyuu! boys are cute, but for some reason I like the girls in that anime better, especially Yachi. Gosh, she’s cute. Thinking about husbandos only made me think about waifus, which made me feel slightly depressed about the state of bishonen/sports anime.

Then yesterday, the answer struck me like a thunderbolt.

MY HUSBANDO OF THE YEAR IS TAROU, THAT LOVABLE FUCKUP.

I only started watching Shirobako yesterday, but I am fully confident in my decision.

What has been your favourite anime this year? Do you agree/disagree with my hot takes? Let me know in the comments!

Just remember: if I didn’t mention your favourite show, it’s probably because I was too lazy to watch it.