Behind The Nihon Review

Kamichika Rio

It occurred to me while reading Harry G. Frankurt’s “On Bullshit” that quite a few of the scenes we see in anime necessarily rest on a distinctly anti-realist skepticism of the truth of the world. In such anime, we see illustrations of anything from the most mundane aspects of our lives to what we can consider our most important experiences as holding no actual meaning, and this is the conception quite a few individuals have come to. Admittedly, this problem stretches beyond anime, and it constitutes, I believe, a far more pervasive trend in postmodernity than we may sometimes think. Read More »

More mock awards on the anime blogosphere (as if there haven’t been enough), this one being a sequel of the one I did last year. Just like the last effort, this set of awards will be structured to (somewhat) resemble the real Academy Awards, cheekily timed to coincide with yesterday’s ceremony. Again, these awards are completely biased by what I’ve seen (as well as the small detail of my own taste), and I’m pretty much going to conveniently ignore ongoing series except where it’s utterly clear that there’s no worthwhile competition within cooie. The other anomaly is Bakemonogatari, which is near enough to completion that I may as well treat it as such. I’m also going to snub worthwhile series like Aoi Bungaku and Kemono no Souja Erin because I still haven’t finished either (which is unfortunate, because what I’ve seen of both series has been outstanding, but they’re not what I’d call “easy” shows to watch, which is why I’ve been pacing myself with them). Oh yeah, and seeing as I’ve had to try to recall an entire year’s worth of anime, songs and seiyuu, there’s almost certainly something or someone I’ve unintentionally left out, so feel free to point out if you think I’ve tripped up.

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This post is largely inspired by a Twitter debate largely between Sea Slugs! Anime Blog’s Jesus159159159 and The Cart Driver’s Scamp, over the respective merits and flaws of Excel Saga and Seto no Hanayome. For the record, I sided with Jesus159159159, but it’s quite a stretch to say either is an exceptionally funny, let alone clever, comedy. Don’t get me wrong, both shows have their moments. But they’re both, ultimately, random comedies, which means they struggle to be consistently incisive… let alone just plain consistent. (Minor spoiler warning for the tagged titles).

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This is Nishino Aki, my assistant for this article. She is not amused at what I am about to put her through.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about how I translate sex scenes (エロシーン, ero-scene) in visual novels. It is one of the least pleasurable aspects of my hobby, and I’m rather glad that I never had to deal with ero-scenes during my time as a fansubber. Ero-scenes are notoriously difficult to translate well; several inherent linguistic barriers prevent accurate and succinct translation. What I am proposing here may not be new, or radical, and by no means is it perfect, but I believe it to be a different take on the translation of the ero-scene. This system will not make the reading of an ero-scene enjoyable. An ero-scene is an inherently cheesy, silly thing to read, and nothing that I, or any other translator, can do would change that. Rather, this is simply a way for translators to cut their losses. I have always facetiously advocated that there is no such thing as an ero-scene translation that is good; there are simply those that do not suck. Leave the sucking to the heroine, I say.

(WARNING! This article is filled with boring linguistic technobabble. In addition, people might think you’re a freak if you read this at work, or at any other time, for that matter. There are no NSFW images in this article, I promise. Also, please note that this does not represent my general translation philosophy. It is an extrapolation thereof, and in no circumstances should be applied to non-ero scenes. It would be a terrible choice.)

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Strawberry Panic - Nagisa and Shizuma

Yuri, shoujo-ai, girl’s love, cute anime girls getting it on with each other – no matter what you want to call it, these names refer to entertainment that contains romantic and/or sexual relationships between women. Yuri first developed as a genre mainly targeted towards women, much in the same way that lesbian literature in other societies began growing as homosexuality became an issue in developed nations. However, it seems that a large volume of yuri being produced is now marketed towards male audiences rather than ones composed of females. Why is this?

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