Yofukashi no Uta - Ch. 183 - When Summer Comes

[Jadeite_McSwag]

thank you very much for the translation kings

 

[DarkeLourd]

Kou calls himself an idiot but i swear he's actually pretty sharp. At least as far as manga protagonists go. Too many are so dense they'd need someone else to point something like this out.

He's had a few other decently keen moments of insight over the manga's run. He figured out what Miss Detective was up to on Halloween after all.

 

[Krytotype]

Pls be happy ending, pls be happy ending

 

[Makeiks]

Why i feel something will go wrong

 

[TheEerieEarwig]

Both Kou and Kotoyama have forgotten about Akira. She lost one of her closest friends too and yet we barely saw her at all.

 

[fridgebro]

this being a coming of age story im sure everyone knows what to expect. a completely nothing ending that invalidates the entire manga, possibly a groan zone message that is either "lol move on" or "you should wage slave and b happy with your extremely shit life". best drop it here and come up with whatever headcanon you like. i sure am.

can anyone direct me to a coming of age manga that doesn't end like this? seriously. not joking or anything, i'd like to read it so i can dispel this notion i have that mangakas cannot write satisfying endings for these sorts of stories.

 

[RedReReader]

So... is he 15 now?

 

[WeebWaferz]

the denseness is withering like it was biting chunks. dude give us the happy ending

 

[RedReReader]

"Even an idiot like me can figure it out", after saying this, we see that Kou clearly didn't figure it out! lol~
Ps. i was really hoping for a bit of ecchi when i read that it was Christmas. Isn't Christmas in Japan, like, when people eat cake and have sex? lol~

How does Christmas relate to sex?

 

[TheEerieEarwig]

I'm supposing the mirrors in cameras in this setting aren't silver-backed, and Kou isn't just going to be taking photos with a woman that'll show up as invisible, meaning that-- supposing Nazuna turns him into a vampire-- he won't have anything to remember her by.

Spoiler: An unsettling conjecture

The opening and closing internal monologues of chapter 1 might be from an amnesiac Kou who doesn't realize-- initially or otherwise-- that the saying is one that Nazuna said. In other words, this entire manga has all potentially been an extended flashback the likes of How I Met Your Mother.

That would mean that both the Viz adaptation and Tonikaku scanlation represented the internal monologues that start and end that chapter slightly inaccurately but in a way that obscures that foreshadowing.

Viz misrepresented what Tonikaku correctly translated as "Someone said human blood tastes best at night."/「誰かが言った人の血は夜が一番美味いと。」, since Viz rendered it as "They say human blood tastes best at night."

On the flipside, Tonikaku mistranslated what Viz adequately represented as "Thus spake the vampire."/「吸血鬼はそう言った。」 as Tonikaku rendered it as "The vampire said."

But, hey. If I'm right, then that means that there's a chance the story won't end in tragedy.

Spoiler: More Translation Comparison Trivia from Someone Who Researches Japanese More than He Knows It, ft. the French

I've been extremely slowly working my way through comparing volume 1 between the Tonikaku scanlation, the Viz adaptation, the French translation, and the Japanese raws in order to make a judgment on whether I should introduce this manga to my physical collection in French rather than English. Having yet to finish chapter 1, my impression is thus:

I should have expected that all translations take some liberties. Of course they would. Even this scanlation does, though never anywhere close to... whatever the hell Viz is doing. The French translation does this, too, but often seemingly in a way that doesn't readily warp the essential meaning of a statement (for example, the French translation correctly renders both 「誰かが言った人の血は夜が一番美味いと。」 and 「吸血鬼はそう言った。」). This isn't 100% the case (see below), but it may fare better since there's just one person responsible for translation, unlike Viz who tasked someone with translation and another with "adaptation".

Another example: all translations (that I've surveyed) mute Kou's irritation with Sacchan (where he says 「おめーは誰なんだよ／うるせーよ／ブス殺すよ。」, or "Who are you?/Shut up./I'll kill you, ugly."-- he's thinking in a pretty hostile register). Tonikaku retains that he's at least thinking of hurting her ("And who're you?"/"Zip it, ugly, I'll beat you senseless."). The corporate French translation retains some hostility while obscuring that Kou means her harm in the moment ("T'es qui, toi?/"En quoi ça te regarde, boudin?", translated "Who are you?/What does that have to do with you, ugly?").*

The Viz translation renders the above as "Who the hell is this girl?/"I wish she'd just go away already.", which retains the particular hostility of「おめーは誰なんだよ」while obfuscating Kou's desire to harm her in a way that arguably makes him sound more passive than any of the other translations.** It's also the sole translation surveyed that goes the extra step of muting Kou thinking that he hates women: he thinks,「だから女は嫌いなんだよ。」/ "This is why I hate women." or perhaps "It's because of this that I hate women.". The French translator renders this as "C'est pour ça que je déteste les filles."/"This is why I hate girls."), in agreement with Tonikaku. But Viz bafflingly adapts this as "Girls don't make sense.")

I must reiterate: I research Japanese more than I know it. That said, the more times I do posts like these, the more I'm tempted to do a narrative/thematic analysis of this work while cooking my brain comparing translations/adaptations with the raws. Everything I discussed matters, I'm convinced-- the relevance of some things may not be apparent at the time because they're purposely out of context, but in other cases, it should be apparent. The Kou that's so annoyed by Sacchan that he's even merely thinking-- and in a kind of thuggish manner of speaking-- that he wants to kill her, before remarking on his hatred/annoyance of women, is different from the Kou that thinks of that same hatred/annoyance but merely thinks with agitation about why Sacchan thinks she's relevant to what she's angry about.

And both of those Kous are in a different universe from the one that just thinks "go away, already" while being bewildered by women.

Like, this is a fair amount of information loss in regards to the initial state of the protagonist, but then there's the egregiously obfuscating and even actively alterative nonsense Viz has published for recent chapters and has probably always published since they picked this up.

*The French scanlation by Reverscan (who don't seem to have chapters 1-29 on here) might just be a translation of the English non-corporate scanlation, because their translation of the phrases in question are 1:1 with Tonikaku's).

**This is on top of completely altering what he actually thought. It's at least relevant, because, when they meet again in chapter 135, he really does call Sacchan and Micchan ugly (「浅倉さん…このブス共が「悪い子じゃない」って？」; Tonikaku renders the bolded as "ugly hoes" but it's only as much as "ugly people" or "uglies" by itself-- though, it's not glaring , it's funny, and it fits the vulgar register Kou's clearly taking up here). Kou thinking these girls are ugly is a persistent opinion he has. This is a very importan-- okay, I'll stop messing around. I mentioned this largely because it was funny, but I maintain that it is relevant.

Vampires can still be photographed in this universe; read the early maid cafe chapters again.

 

[profroche]

Both Kou and Kotoyama have forgotten about Akira. She lost one of her closest friends too and yet we barely saw her at all.

Pretty sure Ko stated that's a big part of why he's going back to school, so she has someone.

We're just not shown much of his school life

 

[popo53414]

Satan Claus decided to get a boner.

 

[TheEerieEarwig]

Pretty sure Ko stated that's a big part of why he's going back to school, so she has someone.

We're just not shown much of his school life

Yeah, but she has been absent for what feels like an eternity. She has lost just as much as Kou and yet we get no POV chapter of her.

 

[Spooder9]

thanks for the chapter, great stuff

 

[Jstar338]

oh shit he's dumb but he's not so dumb. He's gonna figure it out and then connect it back to Mahito and have a panic attack

 

[Brunoncoleff]

Santa nanakusa? We’ve been blessed 🙏🏻🙏🏻

 

[NotSomeone]

this being a coming of age story im sure everyone knows what to expect. a completely nothing ending that invalidates the entire manga, possibly a groan zone message that is either "lol move on" or "you should wage slave and b happy with your extremely shit life". best drop it here and come up with whatever headcanon you like. i sure am.

can anyone direct me to a coming of age manga that doesn't end like this? seriously. not joking or anything, i'd like to read it so i can dispel this notion i have that mangakas cannot write satisfying endings for these sorts of stories.

Hold your horses pal, let's actually read the rest of the manga before spiraling into despair.

 

[prankishmanx21]

Hold your horses pal, let's actually read the rest of the manga before spiraling into despair.

Seems like this entire comment section is spiraling. I think I'm just going to stop reading the comments for the series. Shits really annoying.

 

[TwisterJR]

1. She looks better in that christmas outfit than most of her clothes in the whole manga
2. Aw that's cute, he takes pics so she won't forget
3. My mind read "Why hasn't she been sucking my dick", haha

 

[fridgebro]

Hold your horses pal, let's actually read the rest of the manga before spiraling into despair.

no
"no" - me
if i turn out to be right you must do the chicken dance. considering what a dumpster fire the ending dagashi kashi was, it may be prudent to buy a chicken suit.