Translator's Journal - Miraculina Entry 2

[hypericum]

Marunouchi Magical Translator Journalina

Week one, entry two: we’re in Japan, you know…

I'm kind of steadily working now. There’s a huge snow storm this weekend, so I’m sitting by the window watching it while I translate. It hasn’t gotten too bad yet, so it’s really pleasant. In any case, I feel like a lot of the concerns I’m having in the early stages are very run-of-the-mill translator problems; they’re not unique to this text and I’ve encountered them a thousand times before (though they end up different each time). Every Japanese translator is always confronted with a shouganai or an otsukare that they have to figure out, and the “it can’t be helped” and “good work today” are such easy cop-outs that they’re a major pet peeve of mine. I turned one shikatanai into “it is what it is,” but I might come back to that later.

“The brand-new pearl necklace I was wearing honestly didn’t go with my sweater, but I was thinking more about how much I wanted to wear my new necklace than I was about how well it went with my outfit, so it is what it is.”

Also kind of a cop-out. It is something people actually say (unlike “it can’t be helped”), but I’m not completely sure if it works in the sentence. The instance of otsukare I came across was a simple greeting between friends after they’ve gotten off work, so I just rendered it as “hey” for now. Still, in response to Reiko’s remark about the Friday time limit, Rina says shouganai shouganai. As an amateur translator, I still haven’t really figured out where the “line” is, and when I’m crossing it—my immediate mental response is to go too far in the opposite direction, because I’m that unsettled by “it can’t be helped.” But I’m never sure what constitutes “over-interpretation.” I want to make her say something like “we’ll just make the most of the time we have, then” as I’m considering what an English speaker might say in this situation. Would it be better if I did something like “that’s fine,” “whatever,” or “nothing we can do about it?” Japanese is also much more tolerant of repetition than English is, so for me, it seems out of the question to repeat it. Repetition creates emphasis here, but we tend to create emphasis using intensifiers, qualifiers, or dramatization. Repetition can also get across a bit of exasperation or tiredness here, as Rina seems to be using it to get her point across quickly and move on to the next part of the conversation. So, my current placeholder line is “Whatever, that’s fine.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s good. But I think it plays into the tautology of the whole thing without explicit repetition. It also still has that meaning of defeatedness. (But “make the most of the time we have” is still speaking to me somehow… I think it’s too much, but maybe I’ll talk to my advisor about it this week.)

This is moreso a comment on the text, but the plethora of brand and chain store names is particularly outstanding. You’d even think for a moment that there was some sort of product placement involved, though I think it reflects the consumerist lifestyle of modern day Japan, which is a theme Murata discusses often. In Convenience Store Woman, the narrator’s sense of self is entirely dependent on her role in a highly consumerist environment. Rina is no different—her magical girl identity hinges on her having bought toys at Daiei as a child, and her outward adult persona is contextualized by Celine, Hermes, and other designer brands. Both her magical girl self and her socially acceptable self are dependent on consumerism. To steer the conversation back to translation, Daiei the supermarket chain is referenced in the text. Previous brands, like Celine and Hermes, are more likely to be known by an English speaking reader, but Daiei might not be. It’s too far to change the name (that, I definitely wouldn’t do—we have a setting here) but I wonder if this warrants a stealth gloss. Daiei Supermarket? I personally don’t feel like it’s needed, but it’s something to think about.

The same applies to discussions about juku and Japanese school and work structures. I don’t see anything too wrong with “cram school,” personally, but we’ll see what my advisor has to say about that. In any case, the imagery of Reiko being harshly punished for cram school and having to leave her magical girl identity behind does play into the typical concept of growing up that’s common all over the world, but Murata writes with consciousness of Japanese societal structures. Reiko’s magical girl identity is crushed by societal demands and educational pressures, and Rina’s is kept intact through consumerism and actually supports her at work. I wonder how differently I’ll perceive Masashi's later.

—-

The snow has piled up so much that I can’t see through the window now, and I’ve come across another uniquely Japanese term that I need to figure out how I want to handle—chuunibyou. Now, of course, this term is one of those “animEnglish” words that doesn’t get translated in the realm of pop culture, but in a short story or novel, it definitely needs to be. Leaving too many things untranslated always feels a bit orientalizing to me. This is a story set in Japan about Japan, but acting like all of these things are completely incomprehensible words just because they come from a different sociocultural context doesn’t sit right with me. Middle schoolers are cringe and edgy wherever you go, even if it manifests differently in different places. As such, my first take on this chuunibyou exchange is:

“Cringe stops being cute once you get out of middle school,” Reiko said, scowling and blowing out a puff of smoke.

“If you’re cringe until you’re 80, then that’s just who you are.”

Reiko’s original line says, literally, “middle school second year syndrome is cute until middle school second year, so.” Rina replies “if middle school second year syndrome pierces into 80, it becomes reality.” I think that “cringe” works alright here; a cringe middle schooler who pretends to be a princess can grow into a “cringe” grandma who lives like she is. “Kill the part of you that cringes not the part that is cringe” comes up pretty often in this kind of discourse in English—hopefully I’m channeling that here.

I’m only four pages away from my weekly self-imposed checkpoint, so I’m likely stopping here for today. Hopefully we don’t lose power or anything in the snow!