Shachou to Sake to Hoshi - Vol. 8 Ch. 54 - Boss and Not Holding Back

[Raska]

Batter up, batter up, swing s home run peanutterfucker!

 

[BrotherCoa]

This is the strategy:

And this is the result:

Very effective boss, hats down to you and your new newlywed life.

 

[Ropoloid]

Feels like Mousou Telepathy remake.

 

[Papa420]

Sankyu gosaimas for translation

 

[Yaugta]

Butter up?

 

[Kireato]

She returned the flavour!

 

[Trazel_Apeally]

Bro, what kinda stories have you been reading???

"A Cat Is Fine 2"

 

[Trazel_Apeally]

Yes, that's exactly right - in Japanese culture it's a pretty classic way to propose to someone. Hence her reaction.

To elaborate, the reasoning goes:
"I want to eat this every day" -> clearly it's about her cooking, therefore it actually means "I want to eat your cooking every day" -> clearly the only way to eat someone's cooking every day is to marry them, therefore it actually means "I want to marry you"

While this is true, honestly I think this is just a really good complement to get.

If you see love, it's because you're Lonely.
If you see food, it's because you're Hungry.
If you see John Cena, it's because you're a liar.

 

[Trazel_Apeally]

She returned the flavour!

Are you trying to carry flavored curry?

 

[meccaflare]

How in the world can you have 4 translation groups on this, and translate "suki desu" 「好きです」(as it says in the raws) into "i wouldn't mind having this everyday". Obviously the next chapter they're going to do the typical trope of the Japanese language not needing to use a subject or object in sentences, so there's ambiguity and confusion, and they'll backtrack to "liking" the food and not the person, but this is just a poor attempt at localization.

Sorry to break up the discussion, but it's a translation issue, not a "Japanese thing with food as proposal" in this case. @Jackist @humanities_descent @unyin @gabarbie @Recyclex @Chuito @ravenpeko @Bonzalez @kornboi

I think the key distinction here is that 「好きです」 leaves the object of affection unstated, so depending on the context, it can refer to either the food or the person. Translating it as “I loved/liked it” makes the food the clear object of affection, which loses some of that ambiguity.

With “I would love to have this every day,” I was trying to recreate that ambiguity in a way that sounds natural in English. On the surface, it's an innocent compliment about the food, but there's also a subtle sense of his feelings slipping through, whether he realizes it or not. The double meaning works a little differently in English, but I think it serves a similar narrative purpose.

That's one of the challenges of localization: sometimes preserving the effect of the original means moving away from its literal wording. I'm not claiming this is a one-to-one translation, just that I made a deliberate choice to retain the possibility of an unintended confession while keeping the line natural in English.

I'd be interested to hear what alternatives people would suggest, particularly ones that preserve both readings without making the line sound like an outright confession or just an ordinary compliment.

 

[Bonzalez]

I think the key distinction here is that 「好きです」 leaves the object of affection unstated, so depending on the context, it can refer to either the food or the person. Translating it as “I loved/liked it” makes the food the clear object of affection, which loses some of that ambiguity.

With “I would love to have this every day,” I was trying to recreate that ambiguity in a way that sounds natural in English. On the surface, it's an innocent compliment about the food, but there's also a subtle sense of his feelings slipping through, whether he realizes it or not. The double meaning works a little differently in English, but I think it serves a similar narrative purpose.

That's one of the challenges of localization: sometimes preserving the effect of the original means moving away from its literal wording. I'm not claiming this is a one-to-one translation, just that I made a deliberate choice to retain the possibility of an unintended confession while keeping the line natural in English.

I'd be interested to hear what alternatives people would suggest, particularly ones that preserve both readings without making the line sound like an outright confession or just an ordinary compliment.

I don't think him accidentally dropping a veiled Japanese-style proposal is anywhere near the ambiguity of a "suki desu." I think that makes him look considerably more careless than the writer intended. I've seen other scanlators write something like "I love (it/you)" to show that the statement is ambiguous and meant to be read in both ways for the full effect. Another method would be to just write "I love it" and then leave a translation note. It may look more clunky but imo its better than accidentally making the reader misunderstand the character

 

[Chuito]

How in the world can you have 4 translation groups on this, and translate "suki desu" 「好きです」(as it says in the raws) into "i wouldn't mind having this everyday". Obviously the next chapter they're going to do the typical trope of the Japanese language not needing to use a subject or object in sentences, so there's ambiguity and confusion, and they'll backtrack to "liking" the food and not the person, but this is just a poor attempt at localization.

Sorry to break up the discussion, but it's a translation issue, not a "Japanese thing with food as proposal" in this case.

Lmao, guess its just an attempt at localization this time.

Ive seen that "cook for me everyday" many times before. Do you think its the same localization attempt as this time or is that also a trope?

 

[Chuito]

I don't think him accidentally dropping a veiled Japanese-style proposal is anywhere near the ambiguity of a "suki desu." I think that makes him look considerably more careless than the writer intended.

Honestly it felt pretty in character for me and it fits within the story.
If you consider how intensely she has been throwing herself at him for quite a long time now and pretty boldly admitting marriage is her goal. I thought his veiled proposal fit.

With what @meccaflare said, i can get his reasoning and dont really disagree since the core message and feeling if the scene was communicated well enough. I would like a TL note at the end about the scene though. A simple TLnote explaining the literal translation and its meaning would go a long way in both educating people and fully preserving the author's intent

 

[TooOldForThis]

I think the key distinction here is that 「好きです」 leaves the object of affection unstated, so depending on the context, it can refer to either the food or the person. Translating it as “I loved/liked it” makes the food the clear object of affection, which loses some of that ambiguity.

With “I would love to have this every day,” I was trying to recreate that ambiguity in a way that sounds natural in English. On the surface, it's an innocent compliment about the food, but there's also a subtle sense of his feelings slipping through, whether he realizes it or not. The double meaning works a little differently in English, but I think it serves a similar narrative purpose.

That's one of the challenges of localization: sometimes preserving the effect of the original means moving away from its literal wording. I'm not claiming this is a one-to-one translation, just that I made a deliberate choice to retain the possibility of an unintended confession while keeping the line natural in English.

I'd be interested to hear what alternatives people would suggest, particularly ones that preserve both readings without making the line sound like an outright confession or just an ordinary compliment.

Here are my thoughts: Some things can be left untranslated in its romanized form, with a translation note explaining the pun/grammar wordplay, because sometimes languages just don't have an easy equivalent in another language. Especially when it comes to climactic scenes, and a VERY common phrase (and confession wordplay trope that's rooted in a core grammatical language structure that just doesn't exist in English) used in practically every Japanese manga/anime in existence such as "suki desu" "anata no koto ga...", etc. You can just look at the discussion in this thread to see the unintended consequences at a poor attempt at localization - people are attributing something to Japanese culture (or character fecklessness), when it's just a translation issue. It's also changing the context of the dialogue from a slip-of-the tongue / freudian slip into some weird intentional roundabout turn of phrase by the character, so the character reactions appear really out of place and context, and character intention gets misinterpreted by the reader. Not to mention it throws away the entirety of the build up from the previous page .. "these feelings. they're like a torrent of emotions" ... then dribble.

You have to remember the medium you're on. It's not an anime/movie, where you have to match dialogue length to how long the mouths on a character move, or that your audience is less discerning about source material for things that don't seem to make sense, because they'll just move on instead of rewinding the video. You don't have page limit restrictions from book publishers, as with official translations. You can have a translator note as long as you want to explain as much as you want. Some printings of Shakespeare plays have the script on one page, and definitions of the words and explanations of ye ol' english grammar on the opposing page. There are plenty of renditions of Romeo and Juliet that don't modernize dialogue like in Romeo Must Die or the Leonardo DiCaprio's Romeo and Juliet, and turn out better and more entertaining. Hunter x Hunter right now has a fansub who writes their translations in a blog, with lengthy explanations, because both official and fansubs have long tried to localize and interpret their translations and have completely brutalized many important plot points in the story over the years, instead of just explaining purposeful ambiguity and wordplay from the author. Gintama was another example that had lengthy notes because there were so many Japanese pop culture references that would be lost to anyone outside Japan and WERE lost to official anime-only viewers because only fansubs bothered having walls of text on screen to give context.

Not the best example off the top of my head, but it's like if you have this text exchange:
A: duck
B: what?
A: sorry, autocorrect. I meant "fuck"
B: i know right, this is looking bad

and it gets translated to:
A: one shall not quack in fear and anxiety
.... and now you have to change all of the subsequent dialogue to make any kind of sense because you tried to encompass ambiguity between "duck" and the exclaimed reaction of using a swear word in one line.

 

[TooOldForThis]

Lmao, guess its just an attempt at localization this time.

Ive seen that "cook for me everyday" many times before. Do you think its the same localization attempt as this time or is that also a trope?

if you have an example, i can tell you. i can try to look it up if you don't also have the raws/original japanese, but no promises.

 

[Arexty]

Wooo~ Things got heated toward the end, and I'm not talking about the curry.
Thanks for the TL.

 

[K1bs]

progress? in my slice of life romcom?

 

[Kaito57]

YES, GET MARRIED SO THAT YOU CAN EAT HER
COOKING EVERYDAY !!! THERE, PROBLEM SOLVED !!!

 

[AzrefReza]

Damn, now I want to eat curry… And I won’t be able to in the next days…

I appreciate how much Chestnut is just a cute cat and not some kind of comic relieve animal or used for sexual fanservice. Helps to give this series some cute vibes besides the horny ones.

That author’s got a cat, the behavior and positions feel way too natural.

YES, GET MARRIED SO THAT YOU CAN EAT HER
COOKING EVERYDAY !!! THERE, PROBLEM SOLVED !!!

Why stop at the cooking? That pussy needs eating too! I’m obviously talking about Chesnut’s fluffy belly.

 

[Valle_reading_manga]

Reminder, she's sober

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I have the feeling he might end up being the reason for getting rejected