School Rumble episode 1 translation notes
Okay, here are some more detailed translation notes for School Rumble episode 1.
Wait, you mean you're going to be even MORE long-winded than you were in the episode?
That's right! Fear! Mwahahahaha!
Uh, check the top comments in the article body for the notes.
Wait, you mean you're going to be even MORE long-winded than you were in the episode?
That's right! Fear! Mwahahahaha!
Uh, check the top comments in the article body for the notes.
posted by ed at 10:30 PM
16 Comments:
PRE-EPISODE NOTES (IN MORE DETAIL)
好き(すき)
"suki", "ski", Engrish, and YOU
(or at the very least, this episode)
The Japanese word "suki" is used to express "to love / like / admire"
However, due to the limited phonetic range of most Japanese people, any English word they try to pronounce starting with the "ski" sound will also get butchered to "suki" to fit the limited range of sounds they can make.
For example:"ski" -> "sukii""skit" -> "sukitto"
In addition, there are words in Japanese that start with "suki" but mean something completely different.
Similar examples in English:
add / addict
advent / adventurous
bad / badge
... And of course, suki also has homonyms. Examples are 隙 (opportunity) and 鋤 (a shovel)
... no, I'm not on crack, and no, you can't have some of what I'm smoking.
You'll see why all of this is important later.
"mamachari" - a type of single-gear bicycle, very common in Japan. The name comes from "Mama" (housewife) "Charinko" (Japanese word for bicycle).
They're everywhere, though, and not just driven by housewives and grannies.
Because they're single-gear, they're difficult to get moving and don't go very fast - with only one gear ratio, they need to choose one that can create enough torque to get the bike going while not being so short that you'd have to kill yourself to get to any decent speed!
The Japanese Writing System
(and why people hate it, especially Kanji)
The Japanese writing system, as it happens, was basically stolen from the Chinese. You see, for a long time the Japanese had a SPOKEN language, but not a written one. So when the chance came, they decided to try to warp and mash the written Chinese language into use for writing Japanese. The language has evolved over the years to include its own phonetic alphabets (derived from Chinese characters, greatly simplified), but Kanji (lit: Chinese Characters) remains part of the Japanese writing system.
GET TO THE POINT ALREADY YOU LONG-WINDED FREAK
Okay, okay. The difficult thing about Kanji is that almost every Kanji has several different ways to pronounce it, depending on where you use it. Knowing what how to read a kanji in a certain situation goes back to the whole memorization game.
[An example I like to use: 今=ima, 今日=kyou, 今日は=konnichiwa. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.]
The government sets standards for which kanji a person should know by what grade level, so if you don't know a kanji which you were supposed to know years ago, people will laugh at you.
Japanese names, girls, and "ko" (子)
and why you can never be sure how to pronounce a written name
Japanese names are typically written in Kanji. As I've just explained, Kanji are pronounced in different ways depending on how you use them in a sentence, and there are some rules you can use as a general guideline to help one figure it out. How do these work with regards to names? The answer: it doesn't. ^_^
Names are basically pronounced using the reading favoured by the person who gave the name. However, there are still "common" ways to pronounce many characters used in names, which people generally stick to. (Generally.) One such character is 子, commonly pronounced as "ko". It's used at the end of a lot of girl's names.
[Famous people whose names end in ko:
深田恭子 fukada kyoko (Actress / Idol)
高橋留美子 Takahashi Rumiko (Manga author - Ranma 1/2, Maison Ikkoku, Inu-Yasha)
峰不二子 mine fujiko (Character from Lupin III)
田仲真紀子 Tanaka Makiko (Famous politician)]
Foreign names in Japanese:
When encountered with a foreign name, the Japanese people try to fit it within the range of sounds they're used to speaking. Which is, unfortunately, not very wide. Thus, foreign people in Japan will usually be referred to using a rough approximation of their name written out in Katakana, and written out as such instead of writing the actual name using roman letters.
That's all fine for Japanese names, but what about foreign names? Well, in case of Chinese names, they generally either use the On (Chinese-derived) readings of the kanji, or they just try to sound it out in katakana.
Why does this matter? Well...
孫子兵法
Sonshi Heihou
a.k.a. "Sun Tzu Ping Fa", or "Sunzi Bingfa" or "Sun Tzu's Art of War"
Sun Tzu was an excellent military tactician during the Wu dynasty. He wrote a book, most commonly known worldwide as "Sun Tzu's Art of War", but pronounced "Sonshi Heihou" in Japanese. (Remember what I said about Kanji?) The book was written over 2000 years ago, but its ideas and strategies apply even today.
As an aside, the "shi" in Sonshi is the same character as the "ko" I talked about earlier. It's pronounced "shi" because it's a Chinese name, not a Japanese one.
(I greatly fear what would happen if somebody were to try to dub this anime.)
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Now, notes on stuff at specific times in the episode:
3:39
A tea stem floating upright in your tea (generally, they would float horizontally) is considered good luck by the Japanese. The spoon, on the other hand, is a Matrix parody. :p
5:56
Ah, this is what of my favourite jokes, but it's probably lost on many viewers. You see, since the Japanese language has a LOT smaller range of possible syllables compared to English, they approximate English names with their own phonetic key. Thus, "Harry Mackenzie" becomes HARIIMAKKENJII (ハリーマッケンジー). Harima Kenji, HARIIMAKKENJI - Get it? Come on!
8:12
"ski", in Engrish, becomes "sukii" (スキー). See, starts with "suki". Same with "skip" -> "sukippu" (スキップ). And... the rest that follow. See why I had the long-winded notes on "suki" at the beginning, now?
11:24
As explained earlier, Sun Tzu pronounced in Japanese as a Chinese name is "Sonshi". However, since 子 is a very common part of girl's names, and Tenma being the idiot that she is has never heard of Sonshi, so she had mistaken it for a female name.
11:50
As said in the episode, she's trying to make him say "suki" in a roundabout way. Since 隙 is an hononym of 好き, she showed him that. (Are girls really satisfied with just that?)
11:53
datto 脱兎 / Nugi usagi 脱ぎ兎
Apparently because her kanji ability was low, Tenma misread the kanji and used the most common kun readings for both kanji. 脱 is most commonly used in the term 脱ぎ (nugi), which means "to undress", and 兎 on its own is a rabbit (usagi).
12:40
The fat guy is laughing at her because it's a rather basic Kanji, and a high school student should know it. (Of course, since it was all part of her weird plan anyway.)
12:47
Oh no! She doesn't give up and tries to pull the same thing twice! Don't you just love her? :)
12:56
Senbakoki - a farming implement used to seperate rice from stems. It was phased out of use when Western farming techniques were introduced into Japan. Really. That's all it means. So why is it important? Well, you see, Tenma had really intended to show Karasuma the page on 鋤, which is read as "suki", to make him say "suki" to her. (Girls...) She... ended up on the wrong page, and showed him the Senbakoki page instead.
Presumably, Tenma thought she had showed him the right page, and that she was so stupid that she got the pronounciation for 鋤 wrong. Hence the major shock.
It's funny. Laugh. (I didn't, but that's besides the point.)
18:37
Mamachari - see the pre-ep notes section above. Remember that mamachari are single-gear, so to go faster you only have one choice: pedal harder. Looks like Harima has a "proper" bike, though. Cheater.
19:49
What's this?! An Initial D parody!
For those not in the know, this is a parody of the driving manga/anime Initial D. In it, young Fujiwara Takumi delivers tofu every morning at 3am across the mountains, inadvertedly gaining legendary driving skills! The text on the side of the car actually says "Kobayashi Tofu Store", too! (Kobayashi Jin is the name of the author of the original manga.)
20:39
矢神坂
Yagamizaka / Shisshinzaka
Eri used the wrong readings for the first to kanji to end up with "Shisshinzaka". Presumably, this is used to establish to the viewers that she's weak at kanji.
Hahaha omg this show is really funny. Anyways i just wanted to thank you for subbing this eps. ^___^ really dig your choice of colours and font style etc. Subs i felt were great =D anyways keep up the work hehe your a one many army >____< Keep up the good stuff.
Good job! I usually expect rushed translations when subs are released right a few days after the show is aired but i was horribly mistaken. XD
Hi! Good, good, and I mean good stuff!
Thanks a lot for letting me enjoy this anime. Laughed my pants off.
Wyk
(anime-addict from Italy)
Nice anime, nice translation and fonts, very good and keep up the good work. I wish you can finish throughout the series.. ^_^ -from seraphim_call
Man, I downloaded this on a whim, and couldn't stop laughing once I started watching it!!! Many many thanks for subbing this anime....I'm already one of your biggest fans!!!
Hi, I was pretty surprised when I saw a kinda "unknown" fansub group doing this anime, but boy you did a fantastic job!! I've always liked to read translation notes ('cos I hate missing puns.. ^^|) and yours were really good, and yes, I've seen one of the scanslations and I did feel the jokes were sort of left unexplained too... So thank you for doing such a good job on the sub, and I'm definitely looking forward to fully enjoy this series! =D Cheers!
Man, after I watched the first ep I got hooked on this series, one of the best I've seen this season! You've done a really great job with the subbing, never in my life have I seen something with such great detail! Great Job!
I saw your school ramble ep1
It is GOD JOB! Excellent!!
But I found one mistake.
------------------------
20:39
矢神坂
Yagamizaka / Shisshinzaka
------------------------
This point is not Kanji's problem.
Shisshin = swoon or faint
So Shisshin - zaka = slope makes bicycle rider faint
For example inclination is 30~40.
I guess people in this anime call this slope "Shisshin zaka"
goodbye
Great job on episode one. I will admit, I wasn't sure how well you did the subs, being a one man team basically, and having only about 6 months of experience in Japanese. However, I downloaded another group's episode one to compare, and well, yours made the jokes understood, and thus much funnier! Thanks for the great job, and since I'm enjoying this show, I'll recommend this to some friends, and of course, I'm going to be recommending dash fansubs! Keep up the great work.
Actually, I looked up both shisshin and yagami on Jeffrey's Japanese<->English Dictionary:
Shisshin 失神【しっしん】
(n,vs) faint; trance; swoon; stupefaction; (P)
矢神【やがみ】
Yagami (p)
...and indeed the correct term is Yagami. Notice how the first kanji for Shisshin 失 (kanji meaning: lose/lost) sticks out a little more on top than the first kanji for yagami 矢 (meaning: arrow).
Therefore I agree with Dash's interpretation that it was supposed to show incomplete mastery of kanji on her part.
Quote: "(I greatly fear what would happen if somebody were to try to dub this anime.)"
LOL, this anime has been dubbed now. You can watch it and decided if you still hate it.
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