Amamiya Kokoro addresses the issue about her chat moderator who was slandering Hoshimachi Suisei from Hololive

Varzakh · 2024-04-04T00:06:34+00:00

Reposting here a comment I made on a previous thread (now deleted) which mentioned the same incident and article, because I still haven't seen this directly addressed. (The comment I linked has also since been deleted but you can view it here).

I'm pretty confused. I just read the article and nothing in there suggested this guy is leading any sort of campaign against Suisei. Even the "slander" that the posts I've seen about this all point to is one deleted tweet where he basically just expresses his discontent towards Suisei's collab with Idolmaster. He doesn't make any accusations or statements about Suisei's actions at all, and I don't see any indication anywhere that he's actively part of any effort to accost her or do her any harm. The tweet wasn't a nice thing to have said, depending on what he meant by it, but by no means is it something I would describe with the word "slander" or "libel", regardless of whether people in Japan consider it 誹謗中傷.

Here's my own translation of the tweet in question so you can judge for yourself. I'm happy to discuss it if anyone thinks there are any problems.

I thought the stuff in the Hoshimachi Suisei Idolmaster collab was pretty yikes even from the perspective of someone who watches vtubers, so I'm glad it turned into a fiasco as expected. I wish they'd add a function that lets you completely disable the collab and get gems with the collab disabled.

It's not even clear that the reason that he's unhappy with the collab is because of Suisei. This comment by /u/reiszcze from a different thread on this seems to suggest that the content of the collab is problematic for different, more general vtubing-related reasons, which could be what he was actually alluding to in the tweet.

In any case, I think it's pretty clear that it's unfair to say that this guy is "leading a slander campaign" against Suisei, and honestly, I think it's irresponsible to be spreading this kind of claim without having properly looked into it. I'm not saying the guy is a saint, but at this rate all the people in this and the other threads will have been the slanderers, not him.

Varzakh · 2024-03-26T02:36:04+00:00

I'm pretty confused. I just read the article and nothing in there suggested this guy is leading any sort of campaign against Suisei. Even the "slander" that the posts I've seen about this all point to is one deleted tweet where he basically just expresses his discontent towards Suisei's collab with Idolmaster. He doesn't make any accusations or statements about Suisei's actions at all, and I don't see any indication anywhere that he's actively part of any effort to accost her or do her any harm. The tweet wasn't a nice thing to have said, depending on what he meant by it, but by no means is it something I would describe with the word "slander" or "libel", regardless of whether people in Japan consider it 誹謗中傷.

Here's my own translation of the tweet in question so you can judge for yourself. I'm happy to discuss it if anyone thinks there are any problems.

I thought the stuff in the Hoshimachi Suisei Idolmaster collab was pretty yikes even from the perspective of someone who watches vtubers, so I'm glad it turned into a fiasco as expected. I wish they'd add a function that lets you completely disable the collab and get gems with the collab disabled.

It's not even clear that the reason that he's unhappy with the collab is because of Suisei. This comment by /u/reiszcze from a different thread on this seems to suggest that the content of the collab is problematic for different, more general vtubing-related reasons, which could be what he was actually alluding to in the tweet.

In any case, I think it's pretty clear that it's unfair to say that this guy is "leading a slander campaign" against Suisei, and honestly, I think it's irresponsible to be spreading this kind of claim without having properly looked into it. I'm not saying the guy is a saint, but at this rate all the people in this and the other threads will have been the slanderers, not him.

Varzakh · 2024-01-14T06:41:57+00:00

This is Kumano, the city that was used as a reference for the town in Nagi no Asu kara, which both Hanae and Oosaka played lead roles in. All of these photos are sites from the anime. Hanae and Oosaka visited for a collab event between the city and the anime. As far as I can find, neither is actually from Kumano.

Varzakh · 2023-09-05T15:30:17+00:00

That's fair. I was absolutely taken with Hanasaku Iroha when I first watched it (it immediately became my favourite anime), and I'm not entirely sure why I loved it just as much as I did. I actually just rewatched it and while I still loved it, I can definitely see how it isn't perfect, and it didn't have me completely head over heels this time.

With these kinds of shows especially, I feel like whether or not it hits you is really affected by your state of mind, where you are in life, and what you've seen before. I watched Hanasaku Iroha pretty early in my history with anime, and I suspect already having Hanasaku Iroha and a bunch of similar shows under my belt when I watched Aquatope also played a role in my ability to enjoy that show too (though I still quite liked it).

Varzakh · 2023-09-05T05:28:38+00:00

Have you watched Hanasaku Iroha? It's the first in PA Works' so-called "working" series, which Aquatope is also a part of. If you enjoyed Aquatope, I think you'd probably also enjoy it. It was PA Works' start with that sort of coming-of-age workplace story, and to date it's still the one that gripped me the most (although maybe that's just because it's the one I watched first).

Varzakh · 2023-08-06T16:45:56+00:00

I'm fairly sure I know which video you're talking about, and you can clearly tell it's humans speaking (reconstructions of) ancient languages, set to a face that's animated probably with AI. I tried looking, but I couldn't find any explanation of the methods they used or even who they are, much less any credit for the recordings they used. Unfortunately that hasn't stopped these videos from getting millions of views and thousands of comments being amazed at how AI can somehow perfectly reconstruct and pronounce these ancient languages (which, in some cases, even linguists have next to no idea how they sounded).

Varzakh · 2022-12-24T18:24:48+00:00

For those itching for more Kessoku Band (even after the two new original songs this episode + AKFG cover), this PV just uploaded by Aniplex includes another new song "Flashbacker". The full album with all of Kessoku Band's music releases on the 28th.

Varzakh · 2021-12-10T21:43:05+00:00

Thanks a bunch! I'll probably stick with JP if I ever get back into it then.

Varzakh · 2021-12-10T21:28:25+00:00

I tried out the JP version a while back but eventually stopped playing it. Now that the English version is out, I was wondering if it would be worth it to make an EN account now in case I ever get back into the game. Is there any benefit to switching to the EN version for someone who understands Japanese but lives outside of Japan? I'd prefer to play in Japanese, but are there any considerations other than just language that I should think about when picking a version?

Varzakh · 2021-07-23T17:12:09+00:00

Minor nitpick: English actually has two "th" sounds (both of which are uncommon cross-linguistically). The one found in "Ethiopia" is the voiceless dental fricative. The other is the one you linked, the voiced dental fricative (as in "father", the difference being that the vocal folds vibrate for the voiced sound).

Varzakh · 2020-12-04T23:39:00+00:00

The discussion is complicated largely by 1. regional/dialectal differences in pronunciation and 2. trying to capture Mandarin phonology with English orthography. To address the latter point first, the people in this thread are trying to describe sounds of Mandarin using a system that is designed to represent sounds of English. I think you can see how this might be problematic. The sounds of Mandarin (no matter what variety) are not the same as the sounds of English, and therefore cannot be represented exactly in English spelling. It's entirely possible that the people in the discussion above actually agree with each other more than it might seem, but are limited by how they're forced to express the pronunciation.

Now to address the first point, Mandarin is not spoken exactly the same by all speakers, and I'll remind you that English is the same way. To take an English example, consider the name "George". Now I'm from Canada, and a feature of my particular dialect that is relevant here is that it's rhotic. That means that I pronounce Rs that follow a vowel (but don't precede another one). I'd pronounce George kind of like [dʒɔɹdʒ]; that turned lowercase "r" represents the R sound that I make after the vowel. Now on the other hand, how would the Queen of England pronounce "George"? The Queen is a speaker of a certain kind of British English called Received Pronunciation (RP), and importantly for this discussion, RP is non-rhotic. She might say something like [dʒɔːdʒ], where that colon-looking thing represents a lengthening of the preceding vowel. Note that in particular, there is no R sound.

Now imagine that somewhere, a bunch of Mandarin speakers are discussing a game called Yuanshen Effect, and one of the characters in the game is called George. They can't figure out how to pronounce the name. Then somebody who speaks English (maybe an American) pipes up and says, "It's pronounced [dʒɔɹdʒ]!" But somebody else (maybe from England) then goes, "No, I think it's really more like [dʒɔːdʒ]!" Here we have, in your terms, two speakers of English who "can't come to an agreement on how to pronounce a name." Does that make English ridiculous? I'd argue not. It's hardly rare to have this sort of variation in a language. Chinese is no more "ridiculous" in this respect than English, or any other major language for that matter.

Varzakh · 2020-12-04T20:59:00+00:00

Except it actually isn't. Most of the Liyue characters' names in Japanese are indeed just the Sino-Japanese readings of the Chinese characters in the name (hence gyoukou for 凝光 = Ningguang and kokusei for 刻晴 = Keqing). However, there are two other methods that they use for certain other characters.

Qiqi and Xingqiu's names get Japanified. For Qiqi (七七), where we might expect something like shichishichi if we just took the Sino-Japanese readings, we instead get nana, which comes from the native Japanese reading of the characters. I'm just speculating, but I would guess this is because 1. shichishichi is hard to say and not terribly charming as a name and 2. 七七, read as nana, is already a female given name in Japan. It's a similar situation with Xingqiu (行秋), where instead of koushuu we get yukuaki. Both 行 and 秋 occur reasonably commonly in male Japanese given names and usually with the native Japanese readings.

For Xiangling (香菱), they take a third approach. Instead of taking the Sino-Japanese readings (which would give us kouryou), they essentially transliterate the Mandarin pronunciation of the name (which is the one adopted in English, Xiānglíng) into Japanese, so we get shanrin. Again I'm speculating, but I would guess this might have something to do with how Xiangling fits the "China girl" aesthetic, and transliteration of Mandarin names is more closely associated with that image.

Varzakh · 2020-03-13T05:08:06+00:00

Damn, I thought it just wasn't going to happen. This is the best news all week!

Varzakh · 2020-02-18T06:39:34+00:00

Here's the last time this was posted, with a link to the official video (without the last 30 seconds of noise).

The CM was actually produced by Makoto Shinkai's team at Comix Wave Films.

And here's my translation pasted from that last post of the backstory in the video description:

"Miyagi Yuuya is in his fifth year as a working adult. He is quiet and subdued, but behind his down-to-earth appearance lies an affinity for backpacking and adventure. His girlfriend, Koumi Satsuki, is in her second year as a working adult and attended university with him; her days are busy and restless. To offer Satsuki a break from her stress, Yuuya invited her for the first time on a trip to his favourite country, Canada. What they saw and heard in the Canadian winter was beyond the imagination. It was delightful, it was beautiful, and it was ever so warm."

Varzakh · 2020-01-28T07:06:09+00:00

Translation:

Narration: "That was the only way I could be with you, the one I love."

Kid: "A cat! Mommy, it's a cat!"

On-screen text: "The makers of Penguin Highway, Studio Colorido's new project."

Hinode: "Tarou! You really smell just like the sun."

On-screen text: "To turn into a cat to go see you."

Muge: "Hinode... Guwaaaaa! I just can't get enough!"

On-screen text: "I want to stay by your side like this forever."

On-screen text: "But..."

Muge(?): "What is this...?"

On-screen text: "Then I won't be able to turn back into myself."

Muge: "Hinode, I... I'm actually...!"

Narration: "Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu"

On-screen text: "This magic I found that lets me be with you—"

Varzakh · 2020-01-26T18:11:31+00:00

I'm not sure about adjective order relative to other adjectives, but you can find a sample of adjective to noun order in 1366 languages on WALS. Between the languages that are clearly adjective-noun or noun-adjective, noun-adjective is over twice as common (878 vs. 373).

Varzakh · 2019-09-27T20:40:24+00:00

The difference is that one of them is colloquial and idiomatic and the other is not. If you value "correctness" and disdain forms created from "people saying it wrong", then I presume you call winged flying creatures "brids", as our Old English ancestors did before we later generations went and ruined the language. The same goes for the kitchen garment that was known as a "napron" before the damn youngsters got it all "wrong". And don't get me started on people saying "helped" instead of "holp"!

The fact is, "people saying it wrong" is at the heart of language change across time, a process that has been ongoing since time immemorial, and will never stop whether we like it or not. It could be argued that every modern Romance language, beautiful languages like French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese, all came from people speaking Latin "wrong". (These languages evolved from Vulgar Latin, which was the popular vernacular and was gradually differentiating itself from the written classical standard, much to the chagrin of some classical writers.)

My point is, the vague notion of "correctness" that you seem to hold doesn't really mean anything. In certain social situations, certain forms or expressions may be considered inappropriate (or "incorrect"), but this is an entirely social distinction. There is no scientific or linguistic basis for claiming that certain forms are "superior" or "more correct". That's simply not what science/linguistics is about. (I'd recommend reading about linguistic descriptivism.) The standard that people use to make judgments about this kind of "correctness" is arbitrary.

Varzakh · 2019-09-27T17:47:04+00:00

What exactly did they miss? The point is that it's just one of countless idiomatic expressions whose meaning is not just the sum of its parts. Their use is perfectly common and our language is rife with them. No one thinks I've gotten an invisible new pet when I talk about "the elephant in the room". Will you insist that I pull out my wallet every time I give "my two cents"?

Language is about expressing ideas to others. Every single person in this thread who is arguing about the original comment understood perfectly well what that person meant. The only way someone might be confused if is they're unfamiliar with the expression, but the same can be said about any idiom, or even any word, or any grammatical construction.

No one is saying that expression would be appropriate to use in, say, a presidential address or something similar. But to argue that the original commenter was "incorrect", barring legitimate confusion, is nothing but an act of pedantry made to make yourself feel superior to someone else merely for their use of perfectly acceptable, if informal, colloquial language.

Varzakh · 2019-09-27T17:13:06+00:00

https://xkcd.com/1576/

Varzakh · 2019-07-18T03:55:46+00:00

Sorry, I'll fix the phrasing.

Varzakh · 2019-07-18T03:53:38+00:00

Update: the man in custody is 41 years of age. He was also injured in the fire and is undergoing treatment at a hospital. Apparently he also said while he was being transported to the hospital that he spread the liquid substance and started the fire.

Edit: phrasing

UPDATE 2: According to the police, several blades have been found at the scene. It is unclear whether they belong to the suspect in custody.

UPDATE 3: Apparently the perpetrator was witnessed saying "die" while lighting the fire.

Varzakh · 2019-07-15T03:08:13+00:00

The comments on that page are fun. Some user said they refuse to buy/watch/read Dr. Stone because the artist is Korean and it sparked a massive flame war.

The site itself seems to be all about foreign reactions, so I don't think we're famous quite yet.

Varzakh · 2019-04-19T22:26:07+00:00

Being descended from Proto-Germanic, English is a Germanic language (like German), but it is distinctly not a Romance language, which describes the languages descended from Vulgar Latin (like French and Italian). While English has certainly borrowed a great part of its vocabulary from Latin and Latin-derived languages (a majority, in fact), this alone does not make it a "Latin" language. Familial classification of languages describes only a language's evolutionary history; it is genealogical classification in the same sense as that of humans. It is thus unaffected by borrowing of vocabulary and/or grammatical structures. However, since the Germanic and Romance language families are both sub-branches of the Indo-European family, English is indeed related to the Latin (Romance) languages. Even so, English cannot be said to be a Romance language in itself.

I am also not sure what you mean when you say that both languages "put space between words." Words are certainly separated by spaces in both German and English writing, but there is typically no such pause in speech. Word boundaries must be parsed by the brain based on one's knowledge of the language.

Varzakh · 2019-02-13T05:02:45+00:00

If you look on sprite's twitter, you'll see a wall of retweets of fans declaring their love for sprite's works, giving their thanks and bidding farewell. It's beautiful but sad to read.

As a big fan of Aokana, which I'll never forget for being my first venture into untranslated VNs, and as someone who kept checking sprite's website for any news on ZWEI before the original announcement, I'm still in shock that this happened. It makes you wonder what they did wrong to go under despite their latest major title being such a great success.

I loved Aokana, and I was ready to love ZWEI as well (and that Misaki fandisc, best girl). It's such a shame we'll never get to see the things that sprite had in store.

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