The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady - Ch. 38

[IlsaTilsaKilsaMilsa]

This is not the first this has happened, but king is a gendered term, only men can become king. Use ruler if you want to pander to the sjw crowd or just use queen.

There has been more than a few crowned female kings throughout history.

 

[KitsuKyouno]

The drama part is really better than in the anime

 

[caneguy1]

I guess this is why Algard didn't ask for Euphies help from the beginning, she was too devoted to her responsibilities.

 

[NotALewdGuy]

AL STILL DID NOTHING WRONG

 

[moblinsecret]

My god, you're right. I checked the raws and... even the raws are woke!

I can't believe how far this conspiracy goes... the woke sjw translators have even infected the original author...

Spoiler: manga panel

(translator's note: 王様 means king, 女王 means queen. She's explicitly being called king here)

Actually 王様 is gender-neutral. 王様 "ou-sama" is the respectful way of saying 王 "ou", which if you look it up in a Japanese dictionary, you get this:

【王】の解説​

1. 国などを治める人。

(There are some other definitions listed as well but they aren't relevant.)

This translates to

A person who governs a country, etc.

Notice that it doesn't specify gender.
On the other hand, if you look up "king" in an English dictionary, you get

(the title of) a male ruler of a country, who holds this position because of his royal birth

In English, the word "king" is not gender-neutral. While in many cases translating 王 or 王様 as "king" is appropriate, this is not one of them. It's not like there aren't any gender-neutral words for it in English, either - we have "ruler" or "monarch" as two examples.

Of course, you might ask why the Japanese doesn't use 女王 or 女王様 "queen" here, given that it's the word that's usually used when they want to say "queen". It's quite clear why, as can be seen the line shown above 次の王様はアニス様なのか？ "Is the next king [sic] going to be Anis-sama?" Here it wouldn't make sense to use 女王 "queen": the person currently on the throne is a man. Also the two people next in line for the throne are of different genders. Basically, what's important is the fact that they're talking about the one to rule the country, and the gender of who that will be is not known/not relevant. So the author has used the gender-neutral term, which in Japanese is just 王.

tl;dr: "king" is a mistranslation because it implies that they are using an explicitly male-gendered word to refer to the ruler of the country, when this is not the case in the original Japanese.

 

[AirKat]

This is not the first this has happened, but king is a gendered term, only men can become king. Use ruler if you want to pander to the sjw crowd or just use queen.

Damn someone tell 14th century Poland then

 

[KZO]

All the imagery is much better than the anime, it helps they aren't constrained to fit everything in 24 minutes of animation I guess. Good for Thomas to explain this properly here.

 

[namingwrongs]

I hope the mangaka will follow the anime's footsteps in adapting the episode 11 scene, the part where Tilty comfort Anis. IIRC in the novel it was this Thomas dude instead Tilty.

Tilty is in a bit of a weird position where she wasn't there in the original story so if they want to have her do anything significant it either means rewriting the story completely to give her something to do or giving her other people's jobs thus reducing their significance.

 

[ErikTheRed]

The trouble is that in the current state of things the nobility literally has all the power politically, spiritually, economically, and practically. And if anyone tries to take politcal power from the nobility or give more political power to the commmoners it will almost certainly result in another civil war. The current king had to put down a rebellion led by his older brother when their father tried to give even a small amount of political power to non magic commoners. Its why there's so much resistance to Anis and Magicology still, just by existing and promoting a method for commoners to have access to magic that they dont have to pay huge sums to nobles to use, she threatens to close the gap between the nobility and commoners. So she cant just go "Democracy ya'll!", and have it all work out without doing massive amounts of groundwork.

Yeah, it's no quick fix. But she could at least try something to rock the status quo of the nation. If everyone was afraid of the consequences there would never be any change. If a system is bad it doesnt matter if you change out the person nominally running it. You need to change the entire system.

 

[TanyaTheEvil]

This was a moving chapter, thanks for the translation

 

[onipuck]

Clearly it's time to destroy the concept of a monarchy, and instill a democracy or republic.

 

[SardonicJester]

They're saying Anis will cease to being the same Anis that we see for the last 30+ chapters.

When you live like a princess, it's all expected.

 

[Kampfarsch]

Dude just posted cringe

 

[Manchura]

This is not the first this has happened, but king is a gendered term, only men can become king. Use ruler if you want to pander to the sjw crowd or just use queen.

while I agree on the terms of gendering, this may be a king Jadwiga of poland type of situation, where a king is a culturally mandated term rather than a gendered position for hereditary leadership

same sort of reasoning that led to the catholic/orthodoxy schism as well, with the whole "you don't have an emperor so the Byzantines cant be the king of the romans" shit storm that went down when Charlemagne was a rising star in the west and the Byzantines just had the mother of their previous emperor kill her own son for being a middle east simping Iconoclast and take up the mantle as empress

 

[SrNevik]

Yeah, it's no quick fix. But she could at least try something to rock the status quo of the nation. If everyone was afraid of the consequences there would never be any change. If a system is bad it doesnt matter if you change out the person nominally running it. You need to change the entire system.

Her magicology is what's been rocking the status quo of the system, as intended. Her talents and focus would be better directed there.

 

[Grabzky]

Clearly it's time to destroy the concept of a monarchy, and instill a democracy or republic.

wdym republic? shouldn't they declare the First Palletian Empire
oh wait... it's not that universe

 

[Pyras]

Well, that escalated quickly.
Honestly, all this about peasants and noble gap SHOULD have been included in the previous act as well. We barely got any world-building before.

 

[Salfaro]

In English, the word "king" is not gender-neutral. While in many cases translating 王 or 王様 as "king" is appropriate, this is not one of them. It's not like there aren't any gender-neutral words for it in English, either - we have "ruler" or "monarch" as two examples.

As noted by other people in this thread, "king" has historically been used to refer to female rulers at times, the gendering isn't as strict as Queen is. It's gendered through the implied maleness of English in a lot of cases (like "actor" being applicable to male/female as it's the "default", but "actress" is specifically women) but doesn't explicitly have to be male.

You can say "exception proves the rule: you're counting exceptions here which proves King is meant to be male", but I mean, we're talking about an inherently exceptional case in this manga too. If we're going for manga examples, I'm pretty sure the female 王様 in land of the lustrous is also referred to as King in the official TLs, I know she was in the anime subs at the very least. Not exactly just some "amateur fan translator misses nuance" bit.

 

[MangaRockRefugee]

This is not the first this has happened, but king is a gendered term, only men can become king. Use ruler if you want to pander to the sjw crowd or just use queen.

There is at least one King that has been a woman, and I'll not let you slight the memory of Her Majesty, King Jadwiga of Poland

 

[MangaRockRefugee]

Also, time to repeat myself
Besides the obviously simple choice of just standing by and watching Anis waste away, Euphie has the unique option of doing exactly the thing she was made to do, in both meanings of that word. Get hitched, become Queen-Consort, plop out royal babies and become the backbone of the country.
Except it involves a lot more man-made horrors beyond mortal comprehension than the original plan called for.