#BUT now I've added bsd (and it's light novels) to this

[altruistic-meme]

as we can all see, the bsd brainworms got me. so i am adding bsd to the manga collection chart 🫡

[ciaossu-imagines]

I also feel you on the KHR reboot, though I can't find it in myself to completely give up hope. You know what I would happily settle for? The manga being put back in print. I live in the USA and I hate that it isn't sold anymore

anywhere. It's near impossible to find. And you can't find anything after the Future Arc. Hell, I'd love to have an official translation of the Hidden Bullet novels and such.

Anyways, I know it's unlikely to happen but I'd still love to see it. Thanks again for your amazing posts. 💕💕

I can definitely get not wanting to completely give up hope! I wish with all my soul a reboot would come along and surprise us all, revitalize the fandom, so I get the want for it, just don't really think it will happen sadly! Oh my god though, do I feel you on that one. Canada here - I have volumes 1-5 and 7-10 collected in earlier days of the fandom before they became quite so impossible to find. I cannot find volume 6 anywhere and even finding any volumes past 10 now? Impossible, unless I want the original Japanese versions and even then, they're used copies and expensive. I'd honestly love to see a rerelease of the whole manga, especially if they'd put out omnibus editions to make it easier to collect and afford! And you are definitely preaching to the choir on the Hidden Bullet novels. I have so many other series where translations of the light novels are easy to find and it should've been like that with KHR. Hell, I bought the School Briefs for BNHA and the BSD light novels right from my Kindle! The Hidden Bullet novels, translated and readily available, I think would have drawn a lot of fans in. The fan translations I've read were all solid, yes, but hard to find and I had to use Google Translate on a couple of them, but the stories alone?? God, some of them were absolutely incredible and they all added a lot of really interesting aspects to the characters! You're not alone in those wishes at all and I'm with you - I doubt it would happen. I'm sure the publishers and such don't think there's enough of a demand, but it would be like 20+ years of Christmases all at once if it ever happened! And aww, thank you for such sweet words and for stopping by to talk with me 😊

[flaresanimedump]

Because I feel I say "I can't read the Untold Origins light novel because the translation gives me a headache" a lot without really having examples of why, I went back over some of my 382 PR notes on the part of the novel I did make it through a few years ago.

Important note: This exists so I have something to point to when people ask if I've read it or if I will. I love the story of Origins which is the only reason I suffered through as much of the novel as I did, and I was praying that it'd get adapted and adapted well so that I could really appreciate it. If you actively like the translation you may want to skip reading this if only to save yourself from noticing all the fucking annoying shit in the writing.

And this doesn't reflect my opinion on fan translations. Novels are hard to translate, BSD uses weird ass kanji and words, this isn't easy. But somebody got paid for this writing so I get to take harder shots at their skills. If I buy a professional light novel translation I expect a professional-level translation. Or at least, at the very very least, professional-level proofreading. That is not present here.

When I looked back at my notes, I discovered I actually didn't even start making them until after the scenes with the ADA. My 382 notes came from me melting down for a whole 21% of this novel.

Some quotes, starting from the very first line:

It was the night before the new employee, Atsushi Nakajima, joined the agency—and the night had only just begun. - Around that time, there were rumors of a highly competent bodyguard in Yokohama.

This is in no way "around that time," it's 12 years before the previous scene. The Japanese is その頃 which is meant to refer to a time different than where we are. Other common translations for this expression are "back then" and "in those days." "Around that time" is only a valid way to say it if we're aware of what time is being referenced, and at this point in the scene nobody's said when it is.

The translation of the expression is "correct" but when taken in context it says something entirely different than what it's supposed to mean. Like AI. This is a major red flag for what goes wrong with the rest of the book, but honestly it just gets worse.

There was already proof who did it, which led to the perpetrator’s swift arrest.

I cannot tell if leaving out the preposition was a typo or intentional. The entire line is garbage. "Evidence had already been found and the hit man was in custody." Not saying this line isn't difficult to interpret in JP (it is) but a lot of the existing translation is fluff tossed in to make it possible to use words that could be better. And you can do any number of things to avoid having such an awkward comma.

The wind was strong that day, causing the tape to flutter in the wind.

Yeah. This happens a lot.

“What are you doing?” Fukuzawa naturally asked.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. I really hesitate to say anything in the translation is wrong at my current level, but because it means nothing in English, this is wrong. It actually says something like "couldn't help asking."

Fukuzawa swiftly landed with both feet on the floor in the room next door so he could slide in through the slight crack he created,

I have half a dozen notes that are just "where the hell is this character right now". He lands in the room next door so that he can slip into the room next door?

The man wouldn’t be able to escape like this, let alone even scratch his nose.

This is most of the book, just strange and clunky writing. "Let alone" is used to highlight the thing you actually want to do, i.e. "I hardly have time to think these days, let alone relax." Oda wants to scratch his nose? "Even" is hideously redundant alongside "let alone" but could go here if they dropped it and added "or."

"Soon after, they eventually reach their destination."

That is a direct contradiction. It's not even hard to fix it should just be "finally" instead of "eventually."

"I was attending the police academy and living in the dorm until they kicked me out less than a year ago.”

AND THIS. On first glance it looks fine, right? A rare line that doesn't have some glaring grammar error or basic writing mistake. And then you check the raw, where Ranpo says "半年" which means six months. This is a minor thing that's also a massive red flag about the validity of the translation to me, because why on Earth would the translator take out timeline information for a weak ass phrase like "less than a year ago"??? Sure it's technically not wrong, six months IS less than a year, but it's more natural to just say six months! 半年 is as basic as you can get with Japanese! It's on government websites that explain visa timelines! It even means the same damn thing in CHINESE, that's how stable these two kanji are and have been for centuries! The only reason I can think of to do this is because they thought they were 'punching up' the writing with their lame as hell words and it just. Floors me.

To keep this from getting way too long and just summarize:

There are a lot of really bizarre word choices; "tossed to the curb" instead of "kicked to the curb," "got on the elevator" rather than "got in the elevator," "into range with their opponent" etc., and I'm gonna count the secretary saying the murdered company president was like a "governess" to him because the Japanese word is 主君, "lord," and if you weren't familiar with the word "governess" you'd probably think it meant female governor (rather than nanny).

On the more nitpicky stuff, there are a whopping 248 uses of the word "even," most of which need to be removed (and for the record I'm not usually one who cares about that kind of thing). I have several notes that words ending in -ly, especially "suddenly" and "instantly" should be banned from use in this book because they're painfully overused. Dialogue tags avoid "said" way too hard and its replacements interrupt the flow of the work. Past perfect is avoided at many many times when it just feels awkward and slangy to do so.

They do this weird thing where they put most adverbs before verbs ("keeping his trunk from even slightly shaking") which isn't technically wrong but feels wrong when it happens damn near every time there's an adverb. Adverbs of manner go after verbs most of the time so this feels almost like it's still in another language.

After a certain point, given the amount of action, I started to get violently irritated with the absolute dearth of exciting verbs (stationary gets flung and is "sent all over the room," not scattered, a desk is knocked over, it didn't crash to its side). Then we get things like "motionlessly looked" which is pretty much the textbook definition of "stare." It's very tell-don't-show.

And I could keep going. I got tired making these notes and I got tired again going back over them. And this!!! Is only 21% of the book!! I'm not sure if the blatant issues were what finally made me stop or if it was the relentless stream of lesser offenses in every sentence.

[pepper-steam-milkshake]

Hi! I read your BSD fic "A Motorcycle Isn't Too Fast For A Tiger" And I absolutely loved it! Ik you're on a hiatus but you haven't updated since 2023... Is it discontinued?? Please say it's not bc I'm in love with it and it would break me if it us discontinued... Anyway, I wanted to tell you that your writing style is wonderful!! Thank you!

glad you liked it anon :) sometimes i forget that 2023 was half a year ago already lol; time truly does fly

it is not discontinued but i've been incredibly distracted by my heathers au fic that has haunted my day-to-day life since june of last year, and so i put it on hiatus because i knew i probably wouldn't update it for a bit, as it definitely deserves its time of day.

longer answer below

if i'm being incredibly honest, i don't know if i'm going to continue motorcycle au as it is. i love it so much, and i've looked back over it quite a few times since i put it on hiatus, and while there are bits and pieces that i absolutely love, there are aspects that are more ooc than i'd like for the main characters. adding onto that that i have done a lot more research since then + i now have access to all the light novels, i have so much original source material at my fingertips at this point that not only do i think i could write it better, i know i could write it better.

that's part of why i haven't come back to it-- i want to actually take the time and energy to plan it out better, to really put some thought into character motives/behavior/what would actually change from canon. working on splinters has really shown me the benefits of taking that time to plan, and i feel like my writing quality has only improved because of it.

tl;dr i will come back to motorcycle au, but most likely i will be rewriting it at this point because i know i can do it better. the original will stay up because i don't believe in getting rid of work i've already put out, but there will be a new one eventually available.

[dazzlingdisaster]

Yooooo guess which dumbass drank the itchy pukey pear juice and then turned around and fucking sprained their middle toe?

Some people say that I need constant supervision and a bubble wrap blanket or one of those inflatable hamster balls and it's days like the past few where daaaamn, do I agree...

But I want a constant supply of lollipops and Monster Pipeline Punch and Pacific Punch sent to my hamster ball bubble force field.

Also I started thinking about all the different anime/manga I've seen with all the different historical characters from the Bakumatsu and what would happen if they all met and then I scared myself and I had to back away from that thought quickly. Bonus points for adding the kids from the Moeyo Ken anime because of the extra chaos. Extra bonus points for their respective Touken Danshi. And now you see why it's scary.

ALSO omgomgomgomg BSD S4 is- DAMN I missed these guys! And tbh I'm so happy that I was wrong thinking the opener episodes light novel adaptation was going to be Stormbringer, and I say that as someone who REALLY wanted it to be that.

[pompompurin1028]

Ok, I just finished "The Setting Sun" and wow I may have read a little too fast towards the end because I was so excited and eager to finish but I'm very much in awe of the whole novel. I hope you don't mind if I just put down my thoughts about it :')

Ig I should put a SPOILER WARNING and obviously, there's:

TW: Mentions of suicide

First off, my opinions of the main cast:

I honestly had very neutral feelings towards Naoji in the beginning but shortly after his suicide and his note to Kazuko I felt that I understood him a lot more. Maybe it was partly because the story took place in Kazuko's POV that I had a more discontented viewpoint of him but afterward I felt I understood him more as a person.

With Kazuko, I personally liked her character and the fact that she didn't seem like she was written to be the "perfect woman" like I've seen in some novels. She has flaws and I think her love for her mother is something I found interesting. Although towards the end, I felt that her love for Mr. Uehara sort of anchored her down.

Kazuko and Naoji's Mother was honestly my favorite character of the whole series. I adored her from start to finish. All the way from when she was first introduced she had a sophisticated and genuinely kind aura and when she died I honestly felt a little part of me die as well, haha. But her last line in the book: "It must have been a terrible rush for you" pulled my heartstrings a lot.

Secondly, I just wanted to ramble about some of my favorite quotes from the book lol

The first quote I highlighted was a line Kazuko says: "...The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people." Which honestly felt so Dazai-like. In both the case of Dazai-sensei and the BSD version of him. There were so many times I wondered if it was the character speaking or Dazai-sensei himself adding himself into the character.

Another one I liked was "I wonder how it would be if I let go and yielded myself to depravity." I don't really have a comment on it, I just sort of liked it lol.

I highlighted so many in all honesty but I also wanted to point out this one: "The dying are beautiful, but to live, to survive--those things somehow seem hideous and contaminated with blood." Again, it just seemed so beautifully raw and just something I envision BSD Dazai saying and believing as well.

In Naoji's suicide note I almost felt as though it was coming from not just him but from Dazai-sensei as well. Which I'm beginning to see is a recurring pattern in the novel. In particular, this one line stood out to me: "Why must I go on living after what has happened? It's useless. I am going to die. I have a poison that kills without pain. I got it when I was a soldier and have kept it ever since."

I loved the Snake Metaphors(?) throughout the story. And especially Kazuko and Naoji's POV of their mother and how they call her "the last lady of Japan" I think they truly honor her and it's interesting to see such two somewhat lost and "tainted" characters almost obsess over this "light" and genuinely kind woman they hold in such high regard. It almost reminds me of BSD Dazai's opinion of Odasaku or even Atsushi.

That's mostly it- I just really wanted to talk about those things and overall I loved it a lot. It's been a while since I've been so absorbed in a book so reading it felt very relaxing and at the same time so riveting. I hope you don't mind me popping into your inbox and chattering on about this :')

Okay, before I begin, Ariel please don't apologize for putting down your thoughts here. I love discussing Dazai-sensei's novels, and I can't even begin to express how giddy, excited and overjoyed I am to receive this ask of yours. And please if you would ever like to discuss more of his works, feel free to chat with me as well, via asks or on discord it doesn't matter😭❤, I'm always down for it. And this whole thing is me rambling over this so please bear with me haha.

And, I want to say, I was extremely eager to read and finish the novel as well as I continued on reading. It is strangely alluring and compelling. And honestly, I tend to be in awe of Dazai-sensei's thoughts and writing as well😫💕.

Okay, so before I begin to address your thoughts on the novel. Let me write down some background information on the novel to hopefully give you maybe a better understanding of it and Dazai-sensei as well?

The book was published in 1947, not long after the end of the Second World War which ended in 1945. The book in general talks about the state of Japan after the Second World War, and the decline of the aristocracy that came with it. (It should be noted that Dazai-sensei came from an aristocratic background as well, but he also seems to have a sense of shame towards it). The title of the book is literally a metaphor for the decline of Japan. Japan is often known as the "land of the rising Sun", and therefore "The Setting Sun" as the title is fitting for this theme.

And well, this defeat created according to here (an article written in Chinese unfortunately😥) caused a great change in moral values in the Japanese society, which caused an uproar for democracy. Dazai-sensei, however, was quite critical of this, as he sees this as a sign that the Japanese do not feel any guilt or remorse for their actions in the war that took place. (From what I've read Dazai-sensei in his works is very much known for his sense, albeit unusual for Japanese writers from what I read, of guilt, remorse and in a sense seeking for atonement, in one of his prose he even wrote that he writes literature for "remorse, confession and reflection" [my translation from my native language]).

Also, it should be noted that The Setting Sun is also deeply inspired by a diary written by one of Dazai-sensei's lovers (especially chapters 1 to 5 I believe). However, Dazai-sensei himself is best known for his I-novels and their semi-biographical elements. In one of his short stories, or prose in his book I am reading, he confesses that he cannot write things he doesn't know or hadn't felt for himself...

Now onto your thoughts on the novel!

Naoji, I honestly felt the same about him at first, but the more I dove into the novel, especially in the chapters Moonflowers and his note to Kuzuko, I felt more connected to him. And when I read the novel I felt as though Dazai-sensei had actually reflected a part of himself in Naoji, and I read something from what @/bsd-bibliophile had said which confirmed that perhaps Naoji was in a sense an extension of Dazai-sensei himself. (Same for Mr. Uehara I should note, who is also an extension of Dazai-sensei, which I had also noted as well when reading the novel).

And yes! I loved Kuzuko as well, and I have to agree with your statement about her love for Mr. Uehara. I was somewhat disappointed with that as well. But I actually had just been reading on something today which is a bit interesting. However, I do not know enough on the topic yet, nor am I entirely confident at myself explaining it at the moment, but I will talk about it briefly down here.

CW Religious Mentions [Christianity] (Feel free to skip if it makes you uncomfortable <3 For this is simply for literature analysis uses)

Before I begin, I should note that Dazai-sensei is by no means a "religious person", many scholars do not believe so either. It was mentioned in a paper that he even holds a critical view of the Church. However, Dazai-sensei commonly mentions the Bible in well the prose of his that I am currently reading (which brought me to research this topic). It was written in some papers that I am reading that he simply understood the Bible through his own means and not what the Church says (perhaps he sees it as a piece of literature as well in a sense...). Some papers say that he formed his unique views of the need to find "atonement" for his own guilt due to this, which some say is not often seen in Japanese authors.

I'm getting off-topic, but what I'm trying to say is that some scholars say that that action by Kuzuko might've been an allusion in a sense. But what the paper was trying to say was that it was meant to be something powerful? But, personally, I'm not sure what I think of it, it might be a bit far-fetched. But I just wanted to make a note of it.

End of CW

And yes! I do agree I loved their mother as well. I loved how genuine and kind she was. I think she is my favourite too, but she also acted as a form of symbolism for the theme of the novel I believe, which I will talk about briefly later on.

"...The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people."

I really liked this quote too actually! And yes, I can definitely see Dazai-sensei saying this... It is hard to tell which part is him confessing, but most of his work tends to have elements of his own feelings and thoughts. Personally, I think it might be Dazai-sensei himself speaking... But I'm not sure, but it should be noted that Dazai-sensei held the concept of "tenderness" in high esteem (other people have also mentioned it here).

And honestly, I get what you mean when you say you don't know what to say about it haha. Sometimes authors just put sentences and words together so beautifully.

And yes, I definitely understand that! I felt that as well, and as I said, Dazai-sensei seems to have put elements of himself into Naoji...

And ahh the snake metaphor! I read on it a bit before, and some say that it might've been symbolizing the decline of Japan/the aristocracy. And the use of the term "the last lady of Japan" seems to symbolize the fall of the old traditions of Japan. It had seemed to me that their mother was a symbol of the "old Japan" that had fallen after the war.

And yes, they do hold her in very high esteem! I wrote that in my analysis as well before! From what I have read, Dazai-sensei does seem to hold such people highly, especially those that are honest and genuine it seems. And yes, exactly, it reminds me of BSD Dazai as well T^T.

And please, thank you for coming over to chat with me about it haha. You could probably tell by how long this is how excited I am about such topics😅. Don't hesitate to come by if you want to chat more! And I'm also really glad that you liked the book as well <33