for all that eva was very fucked up, when i first watched the series in middle school (and only the one series, lmao, i am not a hardcore fan or anything), it meant a lot for my "just came out as bi" teenage self to hear kaworu say he loved shinji
they changed the line at the start of EoE from "I'm so fucked up" to "I'm the lowest of the low" which I guess is part of something Gainax is mandating for the new translation but still it's WEIRD
..............okay, the top and bottom I could get, since 'like' also gets used with relationship stuff. I could. But the middle is an enormous change of tone.
i think in another plurk, someone was talking about the whole "100% direct translation vs localization", and i feel like that also has a part to play as well
yeah, like, it's been a million years since i watched eva, but i never got a feeling that there would be any reason for kaworu to be... subtle about his feelings there
> worth it to point out, Kaworu is actually saying "そう、好意に値するよ" where 好意 is "koui," not "koi" or 恋. 好意 can be translated to grace, BUT!! it would have been better to translate this as "You are worthy of affection."
> I guess another thing to say: the Japanese dictionary definition of 好意 (koui) is "愛情の婉曲的な表現としても用いられる" which means "It is also used as a euphemistic expression of love." While it's technically correct, I think "grace" (ESPECIALLY "MY GRACE") was a lazy choice.
I friend of mine put it really well of like... that whole episode is about how Shinji finally receives unconditional love from someone and then he has to kill them
> "people are just angry that it ruins their gay ship" > james: you're kind of shitting on queers who found this moment extremely important as representation > "oh, I wasn't negating the importance of it to lgbt peope"
also the "oh I wasn't negating the importance of it to LGBT people" right bc you weren't just totally implying the only people who care and are angry about this are straight people who fetishize gay men. WAIT YES YOU WERE
I liked this so I could follow up with it more (reading those tweets and stuff) when I got home and to see if I could organize my thoughts on it a bit.
Japanese is indeed a ridiculously vague or ambiguous language at times. But we have very exacting words in English, and I think the problem with choosing the word 'grace' is the implication of pity.
And while I understand this sort of push for 'directness' in terms of translation, where Japanese can or might be ambiguous, it's context (in this case, of the whole episode) that should drive translation rather than directness.
yeah, that seems to be what a lot of other people are saying as well. it comes down to the whole "translation v localization" sort of issue that often seems to pop up
Especially because we (referring to English speakers) actually have a language that can be more exact, so our word choice kind of has to be more obvious. And I don't think these pushes from Japanese companies are approaching it with that in mind despite what they say/think.
Yeah, that's... I mean, that's something I struggle with every day trying to teach English. I have a student who, when asked, says she likes soda but requested a dictionary and told me she doesn't like 'a carbonated beverage'. And she won't believe me when I tell her that 'soda' is 'a carbonated beverage'.
They want the exact word for a concept while maintaining its ambiguity, but they also don't seem to recognize the implications of choosing specific words, either.
I feel like a decent example of spirit-vs-literal is in...KH2, when Riku says in Japanese "what kind of face can I show them?" and Sora makes a silly face and says "this face!"
There was an incident in a class of 12 year olds where one student was accusing another of doing something 'unfair', and I made the call that the other student wasn't cheating. But once outside of class, the accuser approached the grammar teacher and my manager to use the dictionary and say the other student did 'an injustice' to him.
To which I replied that 1) the other boy wasn't cheating, and 2) 'an injustice' is more readily described as something 'unfair', which I also clarified with the student (he just never actually listens in class).
And back to the original subject...since the entire episode, as stated earlier, is about how Shinji finally has someone who loves him as he is without reservation and then has to kill him, it's pretty clear where they were going.
Which is why translating Kaworu's feelings as 'liking' and feeling that Shinji is worthy of his 'grace' don't really work no matter how 'direct' Japanese companies claim they'd like to be.
worth it to point out, Kaworu is actually saying "そう、好意に値するよ" where 好意 is "koui," not "koi" or 恋. 好意 can be translated to grace, BUT!! it would have been better to translate this as "You are worthy of affection."I guess another thing to say: the Japanese dictionary definition of 好意 (koui) is "愛情の婉曲的な表現としても用いられる" which means "It is also used as a euphemistic expression of love." While it's technically correct, I think "grace" (ESPECIALLY "MY GRACE") was a lazy choice.I friend of mine put it really well of like... that whole episode is about how Shinji finally receives unconditional love from someone and then he has to kill themwhat if “my grace” is just what he calls his dick> finds someone saying people are just upset because ~it ruins their gay ship~
> quietly cracks knuckles
> james: you're kind of shitting on queers who found this moment extremely important as representation
> "oh, I wasn't negating the importance of it to lgbt peope"
Capped from Jisho.org: Japanese Dictionary, 'grace' doesn't show up in here.
i'm looking at you, texasadditional screencaps by someone who went to compare all the words and shit