chibimui

[chibimui]

[chibimui]

you ever have just like, a really bad idea

anyways if you like bad things here’s a postcard

[chibimui]

It's kinda funny how I am waaaay more interested in watching Kpop Demon Hunters than my roomie is considering I have basically a negative interest in K-Ent and generally am not as interested in animated movies (Western or Asian).

Meanwhile my roomie is a huge Big Bang/Suju fan, is the only reason I have watched any K-drama, and always wants to watch the latest Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks stuff.

But when I brought this movie up my roomie barely seemed interested, meanwhile I was like "YO THIS LOOKS GREAT!"

[chibimui]

my roommate is revisiting song of the lioness after 15 years and I love every message I get from her about it, but this especially made my day

her: um, who is Liam Ironarm and why is he so hot?

her, two hours later: Liam is a dick

[chibimui]

on watching a parent age

i saw somebody say “what if you’re gone and i haven’t become anything yet” and basically that broke me on a random thursday evening

[chibimui]

Very Real Mushroom Anime (1997)

Wanted to try making a fake screenshot with my mushrooms in a retro anime style!

[chibimui]

Oooh hoo hoo, standing ovation for Takeo Otsuka 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 He's done a PHENOMENAL job as Jinshi in ep 22!! From his voice alone, I could tell he's no longer the eunuch, but the Moon Prince. The commander of the Forbidden Army.

When Jinshi was posing as a eunuch, he'd usually use a soft, high-pitched, seductive voice thick with flattery. As that saying goes in Malay, "menanam tebu di tepi bibir" ("planting sugarcane on the edge of the lip"), he very deliberately uses sweet words to manipulate people. It sounds very forced and unnatural sometimes.

Around Maomao (and his close circle), however, that all changes. His voice is a tad lower, sounds more natural and childish/pouty. He's using a more masculine/informal first person pronoun and doesn't hide annoyance or frustration. He sounds more like a teenager.

In this episode, as the Moon Prince, his voice is completely different. It's A LOT more masculine now, much deeper and feels authoritative (even if you don't speak Japanese). I'd go so far as to say he sounds like a different person altogether. The confidence, the directness. I felt intimidated, even.

Then the reunion scene came and you see his demeanor changed from being serious and focused as "the Moon Prince" to just as "himself" when he asked Maomao if she was hurt. His voice was soft, gentle and hesitant.

Then he switches it AGAIN when a soldier came in and addressed him as the Crown Prince, back to being authoritative.

(Don't need to note how Maomao's staring at him the whole time but SHE'S STARING AT HIM THE WHOLE TIME)

It's just so cool how well the nuance is delivered by the voice acting, i.e. what each scene required of Jinshi (and his many masks). I am thoroughly impressed. Takeo Otsuka, you are a legend.

[chibimui]

My 2cents on the KNH LN5 Epilogue Translation

Alright, here we go. I've written this post 10 different ways and at different periods throughout the year, but I think I just need to post it instead of letting it torment me in my drafts.

Every time I see people use "bad translation" as the reason why Japanese and Western fans have such a different interpretation of the LN5 epilogue I just... don't agree. Even when people try to provide evidence and their own alternative translations to prove that the scene is "sexier" in Japanese, I still don't think their examples are that different or even better than what the official English translation provided.

For me, I feel like English readers are just interpreting the text differently because dubcon just isn't as accepted by English readers than it is for Japanese readers.

(my thoughts continue under the cut if you wanna read my ramblings.)

Does the English translation have mistakes that make it confusing when JinMao kiss? YES. Absolutely! But honestly? It's not like the kisses are described in a particularly sexy way in Japanese. They're just as vague and nondescript. A Japanese reader is used to reading kiss scenes like this though--where you NEVER see the word kiss or are directly told that two people's lips are touching or even when their lips stop touching. You're just supposed to figure out from context. It's all just "breathes being exchanged" and "~something~ pressing against my lips" or "suddenly tasting a hint of cherry" or whatever.

English readers, however, are much more accustomed to direct descriptions and so when encountering kiss scenes described this vaguely I can see why many readers completely missed the kissing. The translation mistakes don't help, but I don't think the mistakes were actually big enough to completely misrepresent the moment.

Also, I feel like what most people actually have issue with in the epilogue is the violence. And the reality is that the violence is translated exactly as it is.

So it always seems a bit disingenuous when I see people say "The translation is bad. The scene is actually sexier in Japanese!" and then specifically only focus on translating the parts where they kiss, because I feel like non-Japanese readers take that and assume that the scene is less violent. But it's not.

Jinshi chokes Maomao. He does so without permission. When he wraps his fingers around her neck he is not doing so after having a carefully negotiated discussion--he does it out of the blue and on impulse. Also let me remind you--this is the image we are given for this scene.

Ya'll - the violence - the UNNEGOTIATED DUBIOUS CONSENT/FORCEFULNESS - IS THE SEXY AND KINKY PART. He chokes her and then kisses her. They argue, then Jinshi pushes Maomao down and kisses her again (cause she's being purposely obtuse with his feelings), and Maomao goes into autopilot and does god-knows-what with her mouth that results in... whatever happening to Jinshi and Maomao slipping away. (the Japanese word Hyuuga-sensei used to describe Jinshi's reaction at the end was a freaking onomatopoeia (ぴくっぴくっ). Seriously, don't go looking at the Japanese text for clarity because you will not find it).

Also for the second kiss, which morphs into the third, Maomao is monologuing the whole time about how to get out of it until her brothel instincts kick in. Would it have been sexier if it was more clear that they had been kissing the whole time? Sure! But even the Japanese text doesn't make this very obvious, which, again, is okay because Japanese readers are used to filling in extra context in a way English readers aren't so it doesn't matter, and b) regardless, Maomao is not enjoying the moment. She might not be having a panic attack, but my girl is not having a good time.

In the Japanese text all of this is presented in typical Japanese fashion with a side dose of Maomao's personal brand of detachment - this means using a lot of vague descriptors that quickly glosses over what is happening with the barest of details. The English didn't leave anything out on that front. It's not like we have entire missing paragraphs describing in detail what their make out was like - what you got in English was basically what you got in Japanese. Which is to say - not much.

Also, please remember this is a light novel. Light novels, in terms of writing level (not necessarily subject matter) are basically equivalent to YA novels in English. The language isn't meant to be super complex and the prose tends to more simplistic for quick easy reading. So honestly, there is no way this scene could ever be genuinely that sexy. The fact that people insist that this chapter is meant to be super hot genuinely confuses me because again, this is a light novel. They couldn't make the chapter genuinely sexy even if they wanted to!

Look. Translating a novel is hard ya'll. In many ways, much harder than other mediums like manga or TV shows where you have visuals to help provide more context. In novel translations all you have is the written word. You have no images to help readers picture what is meant to be portrayed in the original (and in this case, the visual we were given was not exactly a positive one). There is a much larger dilemma of how one can keep the stylized voice of the original author (pure translation) while also making the novel actually read well in English (localizing the text). You never want your translation to sound like it's a translation, and you also don't want to localize so much that you've basically re-written a whole new book from the ground up. And yet, a translator still needs to help an English reader envision the exact same thing a Japanese reader might be envisioning when at baseline, English literary writing and Japanese literary writing are completely different approaches to writing AND the tropes/cultural norms/backgrounds etc. are also wildly different.

How can you do that with a scene like this - where on a baseline level Japanese readers are going to be much more okay with what is happening, and they know the game. They know they're meant to fill in some (hundreds of) missing blanks. Whereas your average English reader (who I'm assuming is Western and disproportionately North American) would set up a scene like this very differently, and be expecting different rules in how to engage. The expectations are entirely different from one language to the next--and yes, this is true even if you understand both languages. I think and approach reading Japanese texts differently than I approach reading English ones because they're fundamentally different ways of writing.

So yes, unfortunately some of the "sexual tension" was lost in translation for the epilogue--I don't disagree with this sentiment. But I personally don't think the reason is "bad translation" as it is folks reading the scene differently because Japanese readers are used to reading scenes like this, are okay with what was presented at face value and are happy to fill in the blanks themselves, whereas English readers aren't. It's like trying to convince a modern day person that seeing someone's ankles is ~scandalous~. A translator can only do so much to bridge a gap that wide.

Overall personally, I give the KnH LN translations as a whole an 80/100. Perfectly passable leaning towards the better side. Not outstanding, but I think the translator captures Hyuuga-sensei's tone pretty well, and a Japanese fan and an English fan could easily talk about this series and come away with the same understanding of the characters, and the overall arching themes/plots of the novel without any issue.

As for this chapter specifically? 75/100. There are mistakes in crucial areas that definitely make the chapter slightly more confusing than it needs to be, but overall, it gets all the important stuff across.

[chibimui]

i walk a fine line between “i’m asexual and i hate how much the world revolves around sex” and “sex is way too stigmatized and people should be able to be more open about it if they want to”

[chibimui]

It's actually rlly interesting to watch the latest KnH episode where Maomao is like, why am I reaching out to Shisui, while reading LN16 where Maomao has so much more self awareness.

(hiding just in case some folks don't want any LN16 spoilers)

Like in LN16 she asks Yao if she likes Lahan, and Yao's inability to answer reminds Maomao of herself. She directly compares Yao to herself, and her current position as Chue (the person questioning someone about their feelings).

Or how she reflects on how much she wants to help Zhizi, and how in the past she forced herself to look away from folks staving in the street, not because she didn't care but because she couldn't have saved them even if she had wanted to--but she can save this girl now.

Ugh the character growth. I love to see it. Even tho Maomao still feels same she also is so different from her LN1 counterpart.

[chibimui]

This is still one of the greatest things ever made.

[chibimui]

reblog this and tag with a food you no longer have access to (closed restaurant, state you moved away from, ex’s mom’s cooking, etc) that will haunt you until your dying day, mine are the spicy chicken sandwich on the employee menu at the fine dining restaurant I was a prep cook at, and the onion bagel from the kosher place down the street from my house when I lived in the city

[chibimui]

[chibimui]

where would we be without tag wranglers. this links to ‘not canon compliant’. ao3 volunteers i am kissing you on the lips

[chibimui]

How did ancient Chinese tombs set up mechanisms to deter tomb robbers? (This is just a basic demonstration - in reality, it was far more complex. The mausoleums of Qin Shi Huang (259-210 BCE) and Empress Wu Zetian (624-705 CE) remain unexcavated to this day because current technology cannot safely handle them.) Cnetizen say "No excavation needed - mercury level testing suffices. The Records of the Grand Historian documents that the First Emperor's underground palace used mercury to simulate rivers and seas. Being highly volatile, the mercury would have largely dissipated over time - not just since Xiang Yu's era 2,200 years ago, but even if Huang Chao's rebels had breached it 1,000 years later. Yet modern instruments detect severely elevated mercury levels at the site!" This confirms the mausoleum has never been substantially breached. While we cannot rule out that a few tomb raiders ('touching gold captains') may have entered, none could have survived - the instant mercury vapor exposure would have been fatal." Qin Shi Huang is revered as the 'Ancestral Dragon' in China, so people never joke about him - it’s believed to bring bad luck (a superstition tied to disrespecting the 'Dragon Emperor'). This might also explain why no one has dared to open his mausoleum to this day.

[chibimui]

Concept inspired by Gizkasparadise's ppt on Story of Kunning Palace

If you have watched the show, who were your favorite couples?