Translator's Journal - Miraculina Entry 3

[hypericum]

Marunouchi Magical Translator Journalina

Week one, entry three: “What’s wrong with turning stressful days into cute ones with a little dramatization? Nothing. At least that’s what I think. I think everyone should try it.”

Indelicately, the snow is pissing me off. With how exhausting the commute has been with five-foot tall piles of snow and slushy (or blocked) sidewalks everywhere I go, I haven’t had much energy to work on this. I’m trying to listen to songs like SNOW EXPRESS and Ai no Katamari while I’m out in order to romanticize this whole thing for myself. But really, I’m not built for this at all. Still, I have that checkpoint, and I really don’t want to derail myself in the first week. I’ll see if I can manage to spit out four pages today, as I really want to have a first pass done in the next three weeks, because I’m working under a hard deadline! In keeping with my goal, I’ll be translating the next part, which contains some mentions of domestic abuse and/or toxic relationships. So be warned that that may show up here.

 

This section opens with a scene of Rina at work. This is another one of those “it’s Japan” moments. I’m translating into American English, so I’m just trying to translate this as standard corporate America speech (“got it,” “get right on it”) even though that might, at first glance, read as “impolite” in contrast with the Japanese. We have this thing called “friendly politeness” in America (or, rather, our concept of politeness is called that by sociologists) in contrast to Japan’s “respectful politeness” (see Osamu Ishiyama’s “Friendly and respectful politeness: A functional analysis of L2 utterances”). It’s considered polite in Japan to create a distance between yourself and the object of your politeness, and this is done through respect. In America, it’s considered polite to bring the object of your politeness closer to you and speak with them kindly. I call my boss by her first name, and we joke around, complain, and talk about our days with each other. I wouldn’t ever call my boss in Japan by her first name, and I would definitely not complain about how long my day was to her. Anyone who’s lived in both Japan and America sees both of these concepts as extremely obvious, but it’s nice to have terms to talk about them, especially given that these can help in more substantive translator’s prefaces. Anyway, both of these concepts for politeness trace back to uchi/soto, or “inner/outer,” and how we perceive them in their respective cultures. But that’s a topic for another time (because I can’t find the diagram I want to show for it…)

Another aspect appears: punctuation. I love punctuation (I say through gritted teeth, though not entirely, because I really do love punctuation, it’s just that no one else seems to give it as much thought as I do and it causes me to get a lot of “you’re overthinking this” feedback down the line). Anyway, when Rina is Miraculina, or otherwise in her magical world, her speech is quoted in double brackets, which is the equivalent of me quoting someone ‘using single quotes like this.’ It could be because she’s whispering, but if I recall correctly, these brackets appear in a later magical scene where she is definitely not whispering. In any case, I used single quotes as a placeholder for the time being:

‘Miraculina, that boy is under hypnosis by Vampire Glorian! You have to put in that data fast, to save him and everyone else! You can do it, Miraculina!’

‘Got it, Pompom! But really, it’s crazy that I’d have to get it done by today when it’s already this late! I wish Vampire Glorian had been a little more thoughtful!’

‘That’s exactly their trap/the trap they set! Come on, Miraculina! Give it your all, and wake everyone up from their hypnosis! You’re the only one who can, Miraculina!’

‘That’s right! I’ll give it my all/I won’t let you down! It’s my duty to make sure everyone keeps smiling! I’ve been a magical girl for 27 years; I’m a veteran! So I can’t just (sit here and) whine!’

You can probably tell how many “ganbaru”s are in here by how hard I tried to avoid that dreaded cliche of “I’ll do my best.” (Just a side note, if you search up an animEnglish term and every result that comes up is somehow related to Japan or Japanese, that’s probably a good sign that you should avoid it in a serious translation.) Also, I hate translating arienai; to me it’s just one of those words that should be in English. I have it rendered here as “crazy” to keep a childish voice, but I tend to think of it as aligned with how we use “no way.” But really, can’t we just port it over?! And take otsukare, ganbaru, and yoroshiku onegaishimasu while we’re at it?! I mean, English is already keen to “[pursue] other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary,” as James D. Nicoll says. But that’s another topic entirely and also delves into some important discussions to be had about the history of English language loanwords and how they were obtained over time. Moving on.

On another note, this whole approach sounds like a great idea. Maybe I’ll listen to Rina’s advice and try it for myself the next time work makes me want to tear my hair out.

As I channel Miraculina to get my work done with “extraordinary concentration,” here’s a brief interval just to showcase a first pass I’m really proud of:

“I’m stressed every single day. I just know how to use cute little fantasies to cook it up into something I can stomach.”

　原作：「ストレスなら毎日感じている。でも私は、それをキュートな妄想で料理して食べる方法を知っているというだけだ。」

I was really proud of that little “cook it up into something I can stomach” maneuver for “ryouri shite taberu houhou” (method to cook and eat)! The great thing about translating is that, sometimes, you get these little moments that make you remember why you started doing it in the first place.

I won’t go into too much detail on the parts that mention Reiko recounting her experience with domestic abuse, but I think the main difficulty I’m having in translating them is getting all that emotion across. She’s ranting to Rina through dialogue, and doing so in very long, almost unending sentences. We definitely do this in English when we’re emotional; we take all sorts of winding turns and don’t let our sentences end when we’re upset (at least I don’t), and Reiko is doing just that. I’m just having trouble getting it across in English in a way that’s both comprehensible and shows that same amount of emotion. I’ll see if I have more comments about this next time.

And just like that, I’ve successfully reached my week one benchmark! I’m about a third of the way done with my first pass. It is 1:30 in the morning, but oh well. I work nights anyway, so my sleep schedule isn’t too put off by this. In any case, thanks for reading! I’m really hoping that they’ll figure out how to do something about this snow soon enough. Also, I listened to MADE IN JAPAN by V6 on repeat for the entire three? four? hours I was working on this. Maybe this song is my magical compact.