Translator's notes: On terminology in K Side: Blue

Messier here did a mighty fine job at straightening out the naming mess.

I’ll be using it as a reference (and will adjust my translations accordingly, starting with Side:Blue) when it comes to naming the structural divisions of Scepter 4.

One little exception though: I’ll be referring to 情報班 as “Intelligence unit” (for the objective reason of the word being used in the official subs and the subjective one of Fushimi and teams not mixing well in my eyes due to his history with Homura which is accidentally also called team)

And also, one little addition: the sidestory Kuro and Zenjou specifically mentions 内務 (internal affairs), so I’m inclined to think that the General Affairs Division has the Internal Affairs section that Yoshino is part of.

And now, I would like to comment a bit on the overall terminology in relation to Side: Blue. In general, this novel seems to be shying away a bit from using the English-based terms that we’re all familiar with by now. I’m not sure about the reason: maybe Furuhashi just doesn’t like to use borrowed words unless he absolutely has to if he can express his meaning in Japanese just fine, or maybe because GoRa themselves hadn’t figured out all of their terms at the time and coined some of them later (it was their very first novel, after all), or maybe it’s because a big part of the novel follows Kusuhara who is a newbie and knows next to nothing about the world of supernatural… Whatever the case, some things beg explanation.

First, a bit on Strains: the word “ Strain ” (はぐれ能力者) defines a group withing the concept of “ superpowereds ” (能力者), with Strains being specifically “stray” (はぐれ), that is, not affiliated with any of superpowereds’ groups (implying that these groups have to have an official legal status), so it’s more of a status defining word than anything… at least it was supposed to be at the time of Side: Blue. I have a feeling that later the scope defined by this term might have shifted to basically describe “any person, regardless of their affiliation, who was born with psychic powers as opposed to receiving them from a King”…

Holy ground (聖域) is the word Munakata uses in the full version of his for-our-cause-is-pure speech and in his conversations with Kusuhara, and what Kusuhara himself subsequently mentions in ch9 of DoB. To call it asanctum is not wrong, but seeing as the kanji for “holy ground” don’t have the reading “sanctum” next to them (something else has - see below), it indicates that, although very close, these things are apparently not quite the same. The technical difference is, as I see it, a sanctum is basically just a force field screwing with the odds, while the holy ground is everything within the reach of your sword and within that field.

Probability singularity field (蓋然性偏向場) is what has the reading “ sanctum ” next to it, which makes the term self-explanatory.

King’s power outburst (王権暴発) is apparently what we know as “ Damocles Down ”, except the term itself doesn’t appear in the novel (it was coined by GoRa later, possibly?)

[1] Written literally, his name is Zenjou Gouki. This choice in romanization is just being consistent with what K officially uses already, eg. the extended o at the end of a name using an h (Kuroh, Suoh), no additional letters in the middle of a name (eg. Kokujoji). Of course, this doesn't make it official and doesn't mean you have to spell it this way!

[2] My choice for using "director" for Munakata's rank mostly stems from the fact that shitsucho (room monitor) doesn't translate so well in English, as bunshitsu (annex) doesn't have the word "room" in it. As you can see, the Scepter 4 headquarters aren't really limited to one room hahah. "Director" gives the feel of a higher ranked official without the implication of combat.

[3] Again, "room monitor," or shitsucho. Hence the confusion with Munakata.

[4] A zaru, or the bamboo sieve that you would place soba or udon on.

[5] Said by Munakata. There's no indication in the narration that he said it, but it's easy to tell who speaks in Japanese by the manner of speech. Unfortunately, English doesn't work like this! So here's a little note if you got confused.

[6]: Dogi is a style of dress for use in a dojo. It resembles a hakama.

[7] I really want to emphasize the magnitude of Kagutsu Crater. We only get a glimpse of the crater in the anime. Bad quality, but you can see a perfectly smooth semicircle above the peninsula near the bottom. Now, a recreation in google maps shows us that that circle is nowhere near the 100km diameter that this passage describes. So I adjusted it. That's half of Tokyo, half of Mt. Fuji, the entirety of Kanagawa prefecture, and parts of Shizuoka, Yamanashi, and Saitama. That's insane. Can you imagine if Munakata let Suoh's sword fall?

[8] About 3.3 square meters, or 35.5 square feet.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-26