rose-reads-visualnovels

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wish ppl didn’t accuse mikage of pederasty like hmmmm smells like fresh homophobia in the morning

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promising myself I’ll have this blog be a place of. well if not positivity at least rationality. and that can’t happen if I just pick fights with people. so I’ll just block. but just know that if you’re dealing with a show full of cocsa like rgu saying shit like “X is only 12 years old” when it comes to sexual dysfunctions and crimes doesn’t mean anything like. grrrrrrr

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being into revolutionary girl utena is crazy bc you’ll look at a screencap and be like ‘omg… shiori (cut out by juri but yk) is crossing her LEFT hand over her RIGHT hand rather than her RIGHT hand over her LEFT hand like every other girl in the scene, symbolizing her non conforming to society and that she is a lesbian. also the men aren’t crossing their hands which symbolizes they are expected to be like masculine and strong or whatever (also symbolized by their blocky, rectangular uniforms vs the girls’ sailor suits with skirts that have more soft angles) instead of demure and obedient (obedience implied by the hand gesture the girls do). so by still crossing her hands shiori symbolizes that she is still giving in to heteronormativity and patriarchy (as she does by looking at the brown hair guy who i think is right next to her? idk) BUT by doing it in a way different from every other girl there she is also being subtly a lesbian. i wonder if juri is crossing her hands like that too’

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i will always judge people based on how they talk about anthy himemiya.

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Haru Dipthong's Utena Fansub Masterpost

On the 23rd of September 2024, @dontbe-lasanya and I began a project to retranslate the anime Revolutionary Girl Utena. The project finished on the 7th of August 2025. The goals behind the project were to provide more natural dialogue between characters, do a better job of conveying the themes, and provide a nonbinary perspective on Utena the character, and I believe we achieved them!

To summarise my translation approach in one sentence, I would say I focus on rewriting the script as though it were originally written in the target language. This means, for example, never using honorifics like "sama" or "senpai" in the English translation and instead making up for it by using ways of indicating relationships and hierarchy in English such as changing the way characters speak around each other.

Translation Notes

Episode 1 - The Rose Bride

Episode 2 - For Whom The Rose Smiles

Episode 3 - On The Night Of The Ball

Episode 4 - The Sunlit Garden Prelude

Episode 5 - The Sunlit Garden Finale

Episode 6 - Take Care, Miss Nanami

Episode 7 - Unfulfilled Juri

Episode 8 - Curried High Trip

Episode 9 - The Castle Said To Hold Eternity

Episode 10 - Nanami’s Precious One

Episode 11 - Graceful And Ruthless; The One Who Picks The Flower

Episode 12 - For Friendship, Perhaps

Episode 13 - Tracing a Path

Episode 14 - The Boys Of The Black Rose

Episode 15 - The Landscape Framed By Kozue

Episode 16 - The Almglocken Of Happiness

Episode 17 - Thorns Of Death

Episode 18 - Mitsuru’s Growing Pains

Episode 19 - The Song Of The Fallen Kingdom

Episode 20 - Wakaba Flourishing

Episode 21 - Nasty Pests

Episode 22 - Nemuro Memorial Hall

Episode 23 - What Makes A Duellist

Episode 24 - The Secret Nanami Diary

Episode 25 - Eternal Apocalypse For Two

Episode 26 - Miki’s Birdhouse (The Sunlit Garden, Arrangement)

Episode 27 - Nanami’s Egg

Episode 28 - Whispers In The Dark

Episode 29 - Azure Paler Than The Sky

Episode 30 - The Barefoot Girl

Episode 31 - Her Tragedy

Episode 32 - The Romance Of The Dancing Girls

Episode 33 - The Prince Who Runs Through The Night

Episode 34 - The Rose Signet

Episode 35 - The Love That Blossomed In Wintertime

Episode 36 - And The Doors Of Night Open

Episode 37 - The One Who Will Revolutionise The World

Episode 38 - The End Of The World

Episode 39 - Someday, Let’s Shine Together

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THEY/THEM UTENA?????

starting my rgu rewatch using @haru-dipthong's fansubs and woah

This really changes everything.......

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starting my rgu rewatch using @haru-dipthong's fansubs and woah

This really changes everything.......

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thinking about kanae living in the limbo of “we’ll finally marry as soon as I graduate highschool” like oh god she really is a forever teenage bride like girl wake up how many years have you been repeating senior year

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Fansub release + translation notes for Utena ep 39

Anthy: あなたは世界のすべてを知った上で、この道を選んだ方です。 Akio: お前のすべてを知った上で、愛している。

Anthy: You know everything about the world, and that is why you chose this path. Akio: I know everything about you, and that is why I love you.

This was a very difficult translation, and probably the lines I spent the longest on in the entire episode. Anthy’s line is meant to convey that the choice Akio made was made after he considered all the knowledge in the world. In other words, the choice was built on his supposed omniscience. I originally translated it quite differently:

Anthy: Knowing everything about the world, you chose this path.

But I wasn’t happy with how it sounded a bit awkward and didn’t have a nice cadence. I played around with lots of variations!

You are the one who chose this path, with all the knowledge of the world.

(more literal, swaps the phrase order)

With all the knowledge of the world, you chose this path.

The other thing I needed to consider was that Akio’s line needs to mirror Anthy’s, so although I really liked this one, I didn’t like Akio’s equivalent:

Akio: With all the knowledge of you, I love you.

Sounds a bit weird, right?

Funnily enough, the translation that ended up in the episode came to me in the shower after playing around with these variations for ages! To me, the biggest perk of the final translation is how both lines sound equally natural and emotionally weighty.

Episode ending card: SOMEDAY, LET’S SHINE TOGETHER

This episode’s title is often translated as “Someday, Together, We’ll Shine” or “Someday, We Will Shine Together”. It’s not a bad translation, but there’s a few reasons I prefer mine. First, the て conjugation means it’s a request, which makes “We’ll Shine” an unusual choice since it implies that their shining is inevitable, rather than something Himemiya has agency over and something Utena is asking of her (which is arguably the point of the whole finale!)

The phrasing also implies a casual request, between friends. Instead of something like “please shine together with me”, I chose “let’s” because it conveys the same level of casual familiarity.

Another reason I prefer my translation is that, importantly, this line is left unfinished in the climax of the episode:

Utena: Someday, let’s…

And I really wanted the unfinished line to sound natural and fit with Utena’s tone. “Someday, together…” sounds really weird in this context.

I considered “someday, won’t/will you shine with me?” but it didn’t feel as cliffhangery when left half finished, and I felt the tone didn’t fit with Utena’s character.

ほら、言ったじゃない？いつも男装してた子でさ。

I told you before, that kid who wears the boy’s uniform.

あー思い出した！あの人か！いたいた！

Oh, I remember! Them! I know them!

In the final scene, I didn’t even notice this on my first watch. But rewatching this for the translation I realised no one uses any explicitly gendered words at all to refer to Utena, except for Akio. The girls gossiping always use あの子 “that kid” or あの人 “that person”. Anthy also uses あの人, while Akio uses the explicitly gendered 彼女 “she/her”. It should be noted that あの子 is more often used to refer to girls, but it isn’t strictly gendered and can definitely be used to refer to boys too. Realising this made me feel so much more justified in my gradual use of neutral pronouns for Utena (you could argue this scene would hit harder if it was the first time they got themmed, but that would come at the expense of all the other scenes).

Anthy: 待っててね、ウテナ。

Anthy: I’m coming, Utena.

This line!!! This is the line I’ve been waiting the entire show to translate!!!

As you can see from these posts, this is one of the things that inspired me to write a new translation for utena. Anthy not including the sama honorific says so much and hits so hard in Japanese that despite me generally having an aversion to including or translating honorifics in translated English text at all, I knew from the beginning that I would need to translate “sama” somehow. This led me to the “Master Utena” translation which I thought was pretty clever! I wanted the feeling of “Anthy is no longer indentured to Utena” to come across via the omission of a word, and I think I achieved that here! It was a long build up but a big payoff!

And that's a wrap! 🥹🥹

I'll be taking some time off from translating since I now don't have the pressure of all my followers waiting for the next episode to release 😅 but I'll be back with the movie after... an unspecified amount of time. I'm also unsure if I want to start on Dandadan first or the movie first.

The biggest thank you to my partner in crime @dontbe-lasanya, I absolutely could not have done this without you. You're an incredible editor and I hope we can work together again (even after we do the movie)!

Thank you to my irl partner Chynna for supporting me while I've been working on this! I love you so much and I love how we support each other in our creative pursuits 🥹❤️❤️ You're the best!

And thank you too all of you who have watched our translation!! It's been a huge undertaking and especially thank you to the people who have been following from the very early days! I wouldn't have had the drive to finish this without knowing so many people were waiting for the next episode!

For all episodes of my Utena fansub, you can go to this link :')

Rose divider taken from this post.

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i swear he ran right in front of my car!

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for an accurate description of my current state of mind I woke up and immediately downloaded virtual villagers 2006 to play point and clicks then lost my entire village bc I let a nursing mother open and drink from a mysterious bottle filled with red liquid

I’m on some heavy pain meds at the moment so I’m not sure if I can concentrate as well as usual but I am feeling ok enough to read umineko. should I liveblog?

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I’m on some heavy pain meds at the moment so I’m not sure if I can concentrate as well as usual but I am feeling ok enough to read umineko. should I liveblog?

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OK SO ELECTRICIANS AREN'T BANNED FROM THE ISLAND.

Natsuhi I love you deeply but please explain to me why have you allowed the possibility of these very important wires to be worn out like this. (I know this was a deliberate cut by the killer, but the fact that the lines were so worn out that no one raised an eyebrow at them getting busted during a storm is kinda human error)

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My catastrophizing queen.

Once again, I do want to know why exactly Natsuhi is a POV character. Sure, it's not 1st person POV like the Battler scenes but so far we've only had Shannon/Kanon and Natsuhi for these close up narrative moments. Maybe she's just the person with the most pathos here that isn't a servant but hmmmm.

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THE HARD CUT ON THE VIOLINS. BRUTAL.

Reality once again infringing on the safety and comfort of Fantasy.

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I do want to note down we're introducing mirrors as a new symbol in the story. I wonder if it'll keep the same meaning ascribed by Natsuhi or if I'll need to extract the true one from between the lines.