Tsuki ga Michibiku Isekai Douchuu - Ch. 122 - Fellow Disciples Crossing Blades x4

[xdouven]

...why, tho?

Why would you willingly just not translate something?

Specially just some random word.

Same reason why some group and some reader prefer onii-chan or onee-sama untranslated.

IMO, honorific and how one character address another are okay to be left untranslated, it's more immersive.

 

[leduo95]

Same reason why some group and some reader prefer onii-chan or onee-sama untranslated.

IMO, honorific and how one character address another are okay to be left untranslated, it's more immersive.

Some terms should be left untranslated only when changing the honorific suffix results in a different tone toward the character, or the term has multiple meanings in different contexts.

For example: onii-chan, onii-san, onii-tan, nii-san, nii-sama
or,
sensei can be used for teachers, mentors, or simply respectful manner toward middle age men (usually someone in politics scenario).

Terms like okyaku-sama or waka/waka-sama however, only has one meaning, or one tone: a polite attitude toward someone of higher status, higher authority.
While okyaku-sama is widely used in various contexts: be it convenience store, restaurant, hotel/inn, private investigation, or even soapland, it has no secondary meaning, nor tone, and can be simply translated as "Dear customer" or "Dear guest".
The same goes for waka/waka-sama: the ones who use that terms are either servants of Makoto, employees of Kuzunoha store, or residents of the demiplane, and they all have the same attitude toward him; the way Tomoe call him is no different, even if she was roleplaying edo period drama. "Young master" was used by both Uxtef & Soseki before, and there was no misunderstanding in those chapters either.

If the way characters address each other should be left untouched, then it should be applied for even Aqua&Eris toward customers, as well as Morris towards the Rembrandt siblings (ojou-sama).

 

[apinkfrog]

No, you should just stick with "young master". The fact that his followers all call him "young"—to his annoyance—is a plot point. Switching to "waka" loses that context for most English speakers. Worse, there is no real gain from making the distinction between "waka" and "waka-sama". An English speaker isn't going to notice unless the characters respond to it immediately—and these don't. Besides, Tomoe already has plenty of archaic speech markers in translation to distinguish her, so trying to indicate this particular one is redundant.

Basically, this is just a bad trade-off. I'm not surprised that a native speaker would want to keep the distinction, but it really doesn't translate well.

If you really want to keep the distinction, you could try to use an alternative English term for Tomoe to use, but I'm dubious about any I can think of. "Boy" is too disrespectful; "Child" is too unfamiliar; "Son" is closer, but doesn't work with him being her romantic interest; "Kid" is not bad, but conflicts with her archaic speech. Maybe if you dig around a thesaurus and English etymology dictionary, you can find an archaic term that works.

I get what you are trying to say.
Tomoes shortening is probably coming from familiarity with mc / her being rough, while others stick to formal loyalty. Spent quite a long time and still debating with people in the server, will probably roll back to young master and match with anime/LN
probably will decide something before the next chapter

 

[apinkfrog]

Some terms should be left untranslated only when changing the honorific suffix results in a different tone toward the character, or the term has multiple meanings in different contexts.

For example: onii-chan, onii-san, onii-tan, nii-san, nii-sama
or,
sensei can be used for teachers, mentors, or simply respectful manner toward middle age men (usually someone in politics scenario).

Terms like okyaku-sama or waka/waka-sama however, only has one meaning, or one tone: a polite attitude toward someone of higher status, higher authority.
While okyaku-sama is widely used in various contexts: be it convenience store, restaurant, hotel/inn, private investigation, or even soapland, it has no secondary meaning, nor tone, and can be simply translated as "Dear customer" or "Dear guest".
The same goes for waka/waka-sama: the ones who use that terms are either servants of Makoto, employees of Kuzunoha store, or residents of the demiplane, and they all have the same attitude toward him; the way Tomoe call him is no different, even if she was roleplaying edo period drama. "Young master" was used by both Uxtef & Soseki before, and there was no misunderstanding in those chapters either.

If the way characters address each other should be left untouched, then it should be applied for even Aqua&Eris toward customers, as well as Morris towards the Rembrandt siblings (ojou-sama).

Waka is shortening of waka sama and we know that, but there is a difference in respect and familiarity, imo. In that sense, there is indeed difference in how tomoe calls him. It denotes distinct levels of intimacy and respect within their relationships. Iirc an example would be doflamingo from one piece getting called waka by the tough guys (forgot their names) and waka-sama by monet giolla and etc. The elusive samurai has another waka and waka-sama usage distinction, like kojiro was a peer to mc and did not serve him with the same affection and put him on a pedestal like ayako, thus dropping the -sama.

 

[Giga]

Thanks for the chapter, Pink Frog.

---

"Poor Abelia"?

I get the part about her embarassment, but seriously--she won big time, there. In plenty of battles and particularly wars, there's a possibility that becomes a watershed once realized, one that shifts things almost irrevocably toward a given direction.

Abelia just pulled Shiki past the Rubicon--it's a wrap for him. lol

 

[Pen3]

"Poor Abelia"?

I get the part about her embarassment, but seriously--she won big time, there. In plenty of battles and particularly wars, there's a possibility that becomes a watershed once realized, one that shifts things almost irrevocably toward a given direction.

Abelia just pulled Shiki past the Rubicon--it's a wrap for him. lol

IIRC, Makoto has full support and is rooting for Abelia with Shiki and her career in the LN. He never shows it though, its all inner monologue.

 

[rphilly]

I will say that putting the explanation of waka at the end of the chapter and not TL noting on first usage was a terrible idea. No prior translation used it before so it had no meaning to me at all when it showed up. When I read it the first time I thought it was a name or nickname. My thought was "Waka? I thought his name was Makoto. Did I misremember his name/read the wrong story? Why is he suddenly called waka?"

I find untranslated terms like onii, onee, oji, sensei, etc and stuff like degozaru, san, hime, dono generally fine because other translators put in the work in the past to make the reader familiar, even in a rough sense, with their meaning. So when they show up I know what they mean and I have an idea of why the English equivalent wouldn't be right. For example the rough equivalent for -san is Miss/Mister but referring to your same aged peers in English this way does not happen. In my neck of the woods the only people that get referred to with Ms/Mr/Mrs are teachers and parents of friends with some exceptions. Using -san can make sense because the equivalent would be extremely unusual for a regular English speaker.

If you're sticking with waka and waka-sama, I think you need to provide a deeper and more detailed explanation in the end credit notes. From the posts it basically comes off as both mean Young Master but waka means Young Master (but closer) which is not a strong reason for the distinction. Tomoe is the only servant/subordinate that interacts with Makoto in a extremely close and familiar way so when she says Young Master it already reads as Young Master (but closer) due to her mannerisms. Everyone else interacts with Makoto in a way that's fairly formal and indicative of a gap between them so when they say Young Master it reads as Young Master (formal).

 

[Celiohogane]

Some terms should be left untranslated only when changing the honorific suffix results in a different tone toward the character, or the term has multiple meanings in different contexts.

For example: onii-chan, onii-san, onii-tan, nii-san, nii-sama
or,
sensei can be used for teachers, mentors, or simply respectful manner toward middle age men (usually someone in politics scenario).

Terms like okyaku-sama or waka/waka-sama however, only has one meaning, or one tone: a polite attitude toward someone of higher status, higher authority.
While okyaku-sama is widely used in various contexts: be it convenience store, restaurant, hotel/inn, private investigation, or even soapland, it has no secondary meaning, nor tone, and can be simply translated as "Dear customer" or "Dear guest".
The same goes for waka/waka-sama: the ones who use that terms are either servants of Makoto, employees of Kuzunoha store, or residents of the demiplane, and they all have the same attitude toward him; the way Tomoe call him is no different, even if she was roleplaying edo period drama. "Young master" was used by both Uxtef & Soseki before, and there was no misunderstanding in those chapters either.

If the way characters address each other should be left untouched, then it should be applied for even Aqua&Eris toward customers, as well as Morris towards the Rembrandt siblings (ojou-sama).

Honestly i think sensei, most of the time, feels wierder untranslated.

Lotta times they could have translated it as "teach", or "professor" but they don't and it feels extremelly wierd.

I remember one manga where the translator refused to translate a butler using "sama" when master was right there and would be more tone apropiate for this european looking butler to call someone "master x" instead of "X-sama"

Also they could have Tomoe talk on old timey speak and that would be funny, imagine her going "Thou shall respect mine lord!"

Edit: honestly a lot of times the people that insist on using japanese honorifics talk like that one meme of "Murder is actually really frowned in Japan. It goes against the traditional concept of 生きる, which means "to live"" but unironically.

 

[komedy27u]

Very much love how the manga turns what was a blip in the LN, and even quite reduced in the anime, feel much better to see!

 

[llde]

A significant change like using Waka and co deserve either a note AT THE BEGINNING or at the first encounter.
Not at the end of the chapter. I also overall disagree with the change.

If this was a choice made upfront when this started to be translated it would be a thing. You would see Tomoe evolution in behaviour by also seeing how she address Makoto. Here is sudden and there is no additional information provided by the change. Their differences are already quite convened by their full behaviours.
I would also say that unless the error is truly catastrophic, or impact deeply with the narration, the choice of a lexicon to use shouldn't change in the middle on the work. Keep a slight imprecision but keep it consistent, or change it everywhere . In most cases they don't even impact a thing.

Changes like this aren't immersive. If we as audience got ourself familiarized with common honorifics, so they don't break our immersion anymore (but they still cannot be regarded immersive), but done like this are way more breaking on the flow and our immersion.

A compromise, to avoid the sudden drop of a term many may be less familiar with at least way less familiar then honorifics, would be to keep "Young Master" for "waka" and "Young Master-sama" for "waka-sama"
Another could be to use "Young Principal" for "waka" or "YOung Mayster" (too keep with Tomoe arcaicist vibe) while keeping Young master for the more formal Mio, and the others. Or also "Patroon", term of dutch colonial origin to indicate someone who semi-feudal rights

 

[xdouven]

If the way characters address each other should be left untouched, then it should be applied for even Aqua&Eris toward customers, as well as Morris towards the Rembrandt siblings (ojou-sama).

Maybe they should. In fact, I don't mind at all. Like I said, it's more immersive.

As a non-native English speaker, both English terms and Japanese terms are foreign concepts to me. Since this is a Japanese story, I'd much rather they keep the Japanese terms for stuff like this.

P.s. to scanlator. I'm not saying you must, it's fine either way. I'm happy enough to see this manga scanlated with good translation.