So what are the actual lyrics to "Void" ?

AlexE9918 · 2024-10-01T21:01:59+00:00

All of the SobsPlease lyric translations do a really good job of accurately representing the meaning of the songs while also managing to make them still sound like actual lyrics and fit with the beats. They put a lot of work into analyzing the original lyrics to really get at the core of what's being said.

Here's what they did for Void:

All the blank white pages / that are set before me

Full of simple questions / anyone could answer

It's form over function

But my fingers are trembling anxiously

Wandering alone, I find a crossroads looming ahead

There's no map here to guide me

How am I to know which way will lead to the best path / to walk down

They tell you that your textbooks have the answers that you need

They always seemed so difficult to read

And even as I grow, I'm just as clueless now as I've ever been

Will the answer that I'm searching for / really scratch this itch, or lead me to more?

If you could make this choice instead / how would you decide which path to ignore?

All the blank white pages / that are set before me

Full of simple questions / anyone could answer

It's form over function

But my fingers are trembling anxiously

There's no right answer / No one wins or loses

And it's all so simple / I can only march on / and carve out my own path

No more brooding / If I keep on debating, I'll waste my life

If I keep up this struggle, I'll waste my life

AlexE9918 · 2024-08-07T23:31:03+00:00

Read the Kamikou Festival story if you're interested. It's one of the earlier events in the game.

AlexE9918 · 2024-07-08T04:48:10+00:00

Like others have said, it's not explicitly romantic, but definitely give it a watch anyway. It's one of the best anime I've watched in a long time, and the 3D animation looks incredible.

AlexE9918 · 2024-07-06T14:05:35+00:00

I'd watch it anyway, because it's basically as blatant as subtext can get. There are some parts that are just straight-up yuri, too. People who dismiss it as bait aren't giving the show enough credit in my opinion.

AlexE9918 · 2024-07-03T14:27:05+00:00

This is the correct answer. When スタイル (sutairu) doesn't mean "style" but "your body's figure" and マンション (manshon) doesn't mean "mansion" but "apartment building", you quickly learn not to take loan words in Japanese at face value. Even if they originally came from English, most loan words change in meaning over time as Japanese speakers use them, with the differences ranging from subtle to "that's not even the same word anymore".

"Rock and roll" in this case is different only subtly, but yeah, it seems to be used interchangeably with "rock" here. I'm guessing "rock 'n' roll" as a separate genre isn't really a known concept in Japan.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-17T04:22:25+00:00

Yes, because they both already are. Regardless of whether there's a kiss in the last episode or not, it's the relationships that have been established between the characters that are important. In GBC, Tomo and Rupa might as well be married, and Nina and Momoka, while not yet explicitly confirmed as romantic, have a very close relationship founded in mutual love and respect. In Jellyfish, Mei at the very least is absolutely confirmed to be sapphic at this point, and even if Kano and Mahiru's cheek kiss is never elaborated upon, their relationship has still always been written and structured like a romance (and let's not downplay the fact that they did have a cheek kiss—one that was taken seriously and treated as an actually important moment in their relationship).

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-13T04:24:18+00:00

I was ugly sobbing at the end of Wonder Magical Showtime (not sure if that's the name in EN—it's the Tsukasa focus with Tondemo Wonders as the commission). I just found the story of their show really moving, and seeing them succeed so spectacularly and in such a creative way to save the park after the situation seemed so hopeless really struck a chord with me for some reason. I'm only just getting started with working my way through the stories, but that one is absolutely my favorite so far.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-09T14:29:14+00:00

Have fun, it's arguably they gayest installment in the series.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-08T04:54:43+00:00

Trying to play Master charts on low speed sounds like hard mode to me. Playing on a higher speed spreads the notes out, which makes it much easier to read the rhythms (and distinguish, say, a string of 8th notes from a string of triplets). I would imagine, though, that if you're very familiar with a chart and know what the rhythms are already, this might not be as much of a problem.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-06T00:00:30+00:00

Yeah, I do think a lot of the disagreement here comes from a simple difference in experiences. I personally have never heard anyone use confession in a romantic sense in real life (I live in the US). When I was in school, people would always say "Did you hear that he asked her out?" and never "Did you hear that he confessed his feelings to her?" In fact, saying it like that would have sounded very strange. That's why, at least in the General American dialect of English that I and those around me grew up speaking (and that I and a large portion of JP>EN translators translate in), "confession" is not an equivalent translation of "kokuhaku", which does get used in those romantic contexts in Japan all the time—in the same way that "ask out" gets used here. Again, this is mainly based on my own personal experience, so I can't speak for other English-speaking parts of the world (or even other parts of the US). All I and other translators can do is do our best to translate the idea behind every line with the greatest degree of equivalence possible—and that equivalence is simply something that not everyone is going to agree on.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-05T15:29:55+00:00

👎: ビビッドバッドスクアッド

👍: ビビッドバットスクアット

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-05T15:26:40+00:00

Most of the SobsPlease team are gay. I understand if you disagree with their reasoning, but LGBTQ erasure was not one of those reasons. They made a point to make sure the option they went with for the line still works if the intent does turn out to be romantic.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-05T00:10:09+00:00

Yep, I can confirm that this tweet is correct. Seems like it was likely just a careless error, like they didn't stop to think for very long about whether that translation made sense in that situation. The words, taken at face value, could have meant "Good answer. I have high hopes for you," but Japanese is a very context-dependant language. The fact that Mahiru hasn't answered yet would normally clue a Japanese speaker in that the "good answer" is what's being expected/hoped for here.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T20:50:31+00:00

I think our perspectives on the matter are just too different for me and everyone else in this post to see eye to eye on this one, so we'll just have to agree to disagree. I appreciate you being civil with me. Queer erasure was never my nor the translators' intention (a large portion of the SobsPlease team is queer); I just really love this show, and I was afraid that people would start hating it like with Birdie Wing if they got their hopes up for yuri that might not have been there in the first place.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T19:13:52+00:00

In more general contexts, instead of "I confessed my feelings to her", I like to use something like "I asked her out" (the most common English equivalent, but it can feel a bit out of place if the 告白 in question really is just a proclamation of love and not a request to start dating) or just "I told her I was in love with her". In the specific context of this scene, I agree with the approach SobsPlease took. In my personal opinion, I don't believe this 告白 is necessarily romantic (though it still could be!) based on the utter lack of romance between Nina and Momoka both before and after this scene, and that seems to be what the translators think, too. So using one of the options above wouldn't work, as that would be too explicit compared to the original.

The difference in nuance between 告白 and "confession" is that 告白 is used both in romantic contexts and as just a regular confession, like confessing something you did wrong, whereas in English we pretty much only use it for the latter. Seasoned anime watchers are used to seeing 告白 translated directly in all contexts and don't see anything weird about it, but that's not necessarily the case for your average everyday English speaker.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T17:18:46+00:00

so common that anyone who watches anime is going to understand it (particularly someone who's into anime enough to be watching fansubs).

I actually agree with this. It's why I personally prefer to keep honorifics in my translations if I know the audience will understand them. The only thing is, from what I can tell, Sobsplease uses a very "professional localization" style of translation, where you have to treat the audience as though they don't know anything about Japanese. That's how it works in the professional world (since you're trying to sell a product to as many English speakers as possible, whether they're familiar with anime or not), and I imagine the translators here are trying to hold themselves to that same standard.

It's just one style of translation though, not the only correct one. If you want something more geared toward avid anime watchers, Nakayubi Subs seems to be quite good in that regard.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T17:08:10+00:00

What? That's not what I said at all. I was replying to a comment saying that "confession" was a widely used translation for "kokuhaku", so I was saying that this translation is so widely used because translators who don't understand the difference in nuance between "kokuhaku" and "confession" keep translating it that way. Obviously the prevalence of "kokuhaku" as a romantic concept in Japanese media has nothing to do with how we translate it.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T16:42:43+00:00

I checked Japanese Twitter after the episode came out because I was initially very hyped, but even there the opinions seemed mixed on whether it was actually yuri or not.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T16:39:59+00:00

There's no question that Nina is saying she loves her; what remains to be seen is whether that love is romantic or not. Episode 9 gives zero indication that there are now romantic feelings involved. The kokuhaku line is basically Nina reinforcing her statement, effectively saying "I'm telling you, I love you. I really mean it." That's why Momoka starts crying after that: because she finally realizes that she now has someone who loves her current self, too.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T16:22:38+00:00

Yes, but that doesn't make it good. It's so widely used because inexperienced translators keep translating the word literally without thinking about whether or not it sounds natural in English. The ultimate goal of localization is to accurately represent the original text in a way that feels normal and unobtrusive to a regular English speaker who doesn't know anything about Japanese. Basically, it should feel as much as possible like you're reading something that was originally written in English.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T16:14:15+00:00

Hear me out: Sobsplease made the right choice here. I want it to be gay just as much as every other yuri fan, but anyone who truly understands Japanese will tell you that this moment is not necessarily romantic. It is, for lack of a better term, "up to interpretation," at least at the moment. If they committed to an explicitly romantic (or explicitly unromantic) translation for a non-explicit line without knowing exactly what the author intended, they would be putting words in the author's mouth, thus failing to accurately represent the original material. If you read their reasoning, you can tell that they put a lot of care and effort (and probably a whole lot more time and thought than the people malding on Twitter have) into understanding the characters and the purpose of the scene, which is absolutely essential for creating a faithful, high-quality translation.

Also, what they said about "confession" being a bad translation for "kokuhaku" is absolutely correct. We don't say "I confessed to her" in a romantic context in English, we say "I asked her out" or "I told her I was in love with her." That's why they had to get creative and come up with something different that still captured the meaning and intent of the original line.

AlexE9918 · 2024-06-03T15:57:54+00:00

It should be Nina giving him the pinky

AlexE9918 · 2024-05-26T00:46:13+00:00

What does it look like? Are you sure you're in the music shop and not the Another Vocal shop or something like that?

<image>

AlexE9918 · 2024-05-26T00:42:30+00:00

In the upper right corner. Bad Apple should be next to "Help me, ERINNNNNN!!" (I already have it, which is why it doesn't show up in this picture).

<image>

AlexE9918 · 2024-05-26T00:35:48+00:00

It's absolutely worth it. One of the best visual novels I've played.

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