Yofukashi no Uta - Vol. 19 Ch. 188 - Lukewarm

[WanRa]

SUCK WHAT

 

[dowiet]

horrifying though I guess it's better than the others :V

 

[RENOMIZER]

mmmmm had to check tags... no tragedy tag. good.

not tragedy tag *yet

 

[Eighty-six]

I read the Raw and Viz is wrong, though understandable in this case, with how 'dirty' "suck" can be understood (see this comment section...).

Thanks for verifying.

That said, I'm far less charitable about Viz's antics, even here-- this isn't first time they've shifted dialogue like this (though, it's not the worst example of such), and every time they do, it's an active detriment to the writing. You've even explained the lost content in this case.

Meanwhile, the adaptationist isn't above preserving innuendo and suggestive stuff-- or even creating it where it wasn't. She preserved the much more explicit "just the tip" joke in chapter 1... but she also can't bear to properly render Nazuna's profession as being a "bedside buddy" or "sleeping companion"... but she has zero problem with rewriting her to be into netorase (however fictional) because she doesn't want to preserve the joke of Nazuna having an understanding of netorare so absurdly meticulous it doesn't even fit in her speech bubble.

Why can't they understand the author's intentions or the nuance of the Japanese?

In my experience, you can normally tell why localizers (and scanlators-- this isn't a corporate problem, it's an American problem) sometimes take massive and unjustifiable liberties with what they're tasked with rendering into English. The guilty localizers tend to have an ideological bent, and the guilty non-corporate scanlators tend to be taking the piss-- and that's if their knowledge of Japanese is up to snuff and they aren't honestly mistranslating stuff.

In this case, though, there's no solid pattern. At most, I can tell this adaptationist is squeamish about having it said that Nazuna "sleeps with" people for pay, but that's it. Everything else comes off as her trying to design dialogue to "flow" (in the way she best knows how, since she's a writer in her own right), at the cost of the actual meanings of the work.

She has a husband and kids, and I bet she's a fine person, but she's at least a third of the reason that the first page I check in a physical manga is its credits page.

 

[FlowerSlaughter]

Regearding the translation, I'd probably do some sort "I wanna drink... I really want to drink it" Pushing to the subtext that "it" is blood and not beer. Although I usually assume more reading attention that some people give.

All three of the manga in my top tier are ones whose characters I can't imagine sexually without shriveling up like I just watched a war documentary. Though, in only one of them did the mangaka go out of his way to include absolutely zero (female, erotic) fanservice.

Can't just post that, and not mention them after 86. There's a spoiler function if you don't want to break the flow

 

[BadmanBlues]

Me, I'm still trying to figure out a satisfying meaning for the vending machine motif in the first place.

With your interpretation, one would have to consider-- in this chapter-- that 1) he got coffee from it, and 2) Nazuna also got beer that was lukewarm, and was similarly dissatisfied. Normally, every time Kou's actually tried to get something from a vending machine, it was alcoholic-- though, his purchase was either interrupted, or he didn't get the alcohol he purchased for his own sake.

I think that you've made a persuasive case. Kotoyama may believe that life is what we choose for ourselves. In that case, she might have thought that the vending machine was simply a cool visual motif to place when the characters were at a crossroads. I think that @Eternalcakes is right, that the dissatisfaction with their current decision is the point. Both of them made a very important, life defining decision right there. And neither of them were happy with it.

They hold a love that they can never fully realize, without embracing the risk of the unknown. Ultimately, their love is mired by fear. And that chills the love, and makes the feeling painful - unsatisfying. The question now is, will they change that decision in light of their regret? Or will they find a way to live with it?

And to your earlier point, you're right - it is a very Kou way to feel about love. Kotoyama certainly understands the psychology of a certain kind of guy, and that guy is literally me (and I think also you). But I also think that love, real love, normally looks like that. The sizzling passion and eros that so many people think of as "love" is only a type of love, and it's not realistically sustainable. Even if both partners are brilliant lovers who know how to constantly keep the other surprised, tense, and excited - they'll both age. That eros will wane with age. And if they haven't established that deeper love, that profound form of friendship, trust, and comfort in another's presence - their relationship will have nothing but convenience supporting it. I genuinely think that misunderstanding about what love is and how to make a relationship work is why divorce rates are as high as they are - though that's really a separate discussion.

 

[Kurshir]

Oh you wanna suck alright

 

[StealthAria]

Oh shit Nazuna will have to get her blood from someone other than Kou or risk going feral.

I vote she goes feral, drinks Kou's blood because it's the only blood that satisfies her anymore, and they come to the realization they should have come to 25 chapters ago (Kiku and Mahiru only died because they were exposed to direct sunlight while in direct contact with something they loved) and also that Kou has already been fully turned but is only half-vampire because Nazuna herself is half-human.

The whole idea that it's only now suddenly dangerous for her to drink Kou's blood is stupid; you're not just suddenly in love after you realize you're in love, you have to already be in love in order to realize that you're in love.
If we look back, we can actually see the two have basically loved each other from the very start and or just only now realizing it. Over the course of just the first few chapters Nazuna went from "he's a weird boy, hanging around here this late at night" to "I'mma kill all my friends if they so much as touch a hair on his head," and Kou went from "she's a pretty girl that hangs out with me at night because I have no other friends" to "I'd rather sit around and do nothing with her in her room than play with the friends it turns out I already had." And that's all within the first 30 chapters or so.

 

[popo53414]

vampire sucks

 

[SleepyColl]

Man Jolly ranchers goes hard as shit

 

[SardonicJester]

It's so childish. He just doesn't know what he wants out of a relationship. It's just an illusion, a wet fantasy that's temporarily in his head.

 

[blablablub]

She's in dire need of some succ

 

[Shootyagoo]

If she wants his blood so bad, couldn't they just drain a little out into a blood bag or something?

 

[Panino]

 

[Admmi]

No tragedy tag yet

Doesn't mean it can't happen, trusting tag blindly is a fools deal.

 

[Kaeos999]

She want to S U C C

 

[Eternalcakes]

I vote she goes feral, drinks Kou's blood because it's the only blood that satisfies her anymore, and they come to the realization they should have come to 25 chapters ago (Kiku and Mahiru only died because they were exposed to direct sunlight while in direct contact with something they loved) and also that Kou has already been fully turned but is only half-vampire because Nazuna herself is half-human.

The whole idea that it's only now suddenly dangerous for her to drink Kou's blood is stupid; you're not just suddenly in love after you realize you're in love, you have to already be in love in order to realize that you're in love.

The fear isn't that Nazuna will die directly from drinking, but that she will turn into a human and that all the years will come rushing back to her.

Mahiru did commit suicide though.

 

[deathpigeon]

Kiku did not die from turning human and all the years coming back to her. She didn't die until the sunlight hit her. She died a vampire because of the effects of the sun.

 

[Gsakiry]

Easily one of the best mangas out there 💯

 

[Phantommemorial]

I believe that half vampirism is going to come back with a resolution to all this.