Ookami Lover - Oneshot

[MangaDex]

 

[GodGinrai]

Shouldn't that comment about the colors of her face be "red and green"? I assume the term used was "aoi", which can mean either blue or green depending on the context. For a traffic signal, it would make sense for it to mean green. Unless traffic signals use blue lights instead of green lights in Japan and I was never aware of this.

 

[Purplelibraryguy]

I assumed it was supposed to somehow be literal, like flushed and sickly pallor at the same time, but how that would manage to be blue I'm not sure.
Well anyway, pretty cute story about good kids.

 

[Vera]

"menacing" in page 7 was more like "suprised + constipated"

 

[FredFriendly]

@GodGinrai @Purplelibraryguy In anime and full color manga/webtoons, the upper half of the face is sometimes shaded in blue to indicated a variety of emotions from anger to disgust to dread, etc. etc...

 

[GodGinrai]

@FredFriendly I'm well aware. The issue is that a traffic signal does not have a blue light. It does, however, have a green light. And Aoi can mean either blue or green. Hence why it should have been translated as green here.

 

[FredFriendly]

@GodGinrai I suggest you read this article:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/515205/why-does-japan-have-blue-traffic-lights-instead-green

It might account for the mangaka's use of blue ("ao") instead of green ("midori"), although I don't know what was actually used in the raws as I don't have access to them.

As for coloring the upper portion of the face green, that would have been inappropriate since that would be most suitable for indicating either jealousy (green with envy) or that she was on the verge of vomiting.

 

[GodGinrai]

I mean, if you had read my original comment all the way through, you would have seen that I had suggested this possibility:

Unless traffic signals use blue lights instead of green lights in Japan and I was never aware of this.

All you needed to do was explain "yes, they are blue in Japan" instead of explaining the concept of facial shading. (which had no bearing on my reasoning for the translation to be green rather than blue)

 

[Pokari]

@GodGinrai:

I mean, the problem is most probably that her face was supposed to be literally "blue" (a traditional comic exaggeration of pallor as previously mentioned) and that the word was "aoi", and so the pun works in Japanese, but not Engish.

Well, I say "pun", there's some interesting things to talk about vis-a-vis the effect your language has on what colors people perceive as being "the same color" or not, but I digress.

Anyway, long story short, "looking green" does have a workably relevant meaning in English and so a more clever translation would indeed have used "green", but I think "blue" seems like it isn't actually wrong as a literal translation (as in, the color on her face if the manga were in color would most probably be blue; "blue" is the intended shade of "aoi" for her face and the rest is linguistics).