#WHAT A FUGGIN EPISODE YO

[don-quixotine]

SO IN OTHER NEWS, ADRIEN IS PISSED.

A short translation of Rocketear because the public deserves to know.

I'm only translating the most important scene. The JEWEL of that interaction between Nino and Adrien.

PART 1. THE CALL

N: I knew it! She's in love with someone else.

A: You spend a lot of time together, you must be imagining things. Who else could she love?

N: Chat Noir

A: -laughs- you're kidding! What about Jagged Stone's crocodile for a change.

N: But there's the video

A: A video from the Ladyblog, that proves nothing.

N: I'll give you proof that I'm right!

A to Plagg: [rough translation: I couldn't have (made her fall in love with me)]

Plagg: Oh yes you could, I certainly contaged you with my natural charm.

A: I think I may have exaggerated my Chat act and she fell in love with me, I have to clear things up.

PART 2. THE BOILER ROOM

A: Where did you get all of this?

N: Sit down, I will be asking the questions. What do you think about THIS [the video]

A: That makes no sense! You're being stubborn, that is not what happened!

N: And how would you know that? Where you there? Are you involved with this?

A: No, no, of course not! But it's clear that it's impossible. I'm certain is just a misunderstanding. Alya and Chat Noir have nothing in common, they barely know each other. Alya is just a fan of the heroes , that's all.

N: They know each other pretty well.

A: But no one knows the secret identity of Ladybuf and Chat Noir. How would Alya fall in love with someone she doesn't know? (I DON'T KNOW ADRIEN, YOU TELL ME, SON.) Alya is the girl that is always reporting, she's always telling the truth, especially to the boy she loves.

N: But they know each other much better than you think.

A: You cannot assume that just because of the one video.

N: There's something you don't know. I'm not talking about the video, I'm talking about something I'm not supposed to tell you. An incredible secret: Alya is a superhero. She is Rena Rouge.

A: But wha--

N: Shh! I know what you're going to say, 'But Nino, how do you know that?' I know because I'm also a superhero. I am Carapace.

A: What? You're Carapace?! But...but you two KNOW. You two know your secret identities!

N: Of course, Alya and I don't hide secrets from each other. Until now, with that little story with Chat Noir

A: Wait a second, I'm not following. I thought secret identites had to be always be protected, but if it was true, you would never had told me about it. Ladybug wouldn't agree with this!

N: Are you kidding? It was Ladybug who gave us our Miraculous at the same time.

A: No... that's impossible.

N: What are you trying to say?! That I'm lying?

A: No, no! What I'm trying to say is... It doesn't matter. You are Carapace and she's Rena Rouge and you know each other, and Ladybug agrees with that. That doesn't mean that Rena and Chat Noir... you know

N: You don't know how Chat Noir is, but I know. I'm part of the team. Of course, whenever Ladybug is around he's always declaring his love to her. But Ladybug always rejects him and with good reason! As soon as Rena Rouge appears, he flirts with her! [unintelligible, something about Chat Noir catching Rena alone, when Carapace is not there]. And now I'm all alone, I lost the love of my life.

NOTABLE MENTIONS

CN: Everyone has doubts from time to time, even me

LB: Is everything alright, Chat Noir?

CN: Yeah, yeah!.... Pound it!

SCENE WITH PLAGG AND ADRIEN

A: I still can't believe Ladybug gave Miraculous to Alya and Nino

P: Of course she did, she is the Guardian.

A: But they are together! And they know their identities!

P: And so what?

A: Then why do we have to hide our identities but THEY can know theirs?

P: She is the Guardian, great master cheese fermenter (SERIOUSLY PLAGG?) and she decides how to [idk something about managing cheese]

There you go, choke on that. ✌️

[buffster]

Graduation Day Part 2 (BTVS 3.22)

This is part of my ongoing Buffy Project, where I write notes/meta for every episode in an attempt to better understand the characters and themes of the show. You can find the full list here. Gifs are not mine.

Graduation! No more library scenes, no more Snyder, no more original Scoobies. Oh, and doubly unemployed Giles.

Graduation Day (Part 2) begins immediately after the events of Part 1. The Mayor just barely misses Buffy fleeing the scene at Faith’s. He’s really emotional and this is the first time we really know he genuinely cares about her. Which just speaks to his strange persona...doesn’t the personality the Mayor puts up seem like it would clash with Faith? Imagine Snyder’s view of her. The put together family man and the rebel girl? Just another sign that the Mayor isn’t what he appears. He puts everyone on finding her. 

Buffy returns to Angel’s place. When he thinks Willow is Buffy Angel tells her he was wrong and he can’t leave her--he needs her. Willow never shares this information. Buffy kicks everyone out and forces him to feed. I saw in an interview that Joss couldn’t believe he slid Buffy having an orgasm during the bite past the network, which totally went over my innocent little head. 

Mayor: I will. I'll do that and worse. Murderous little fiend, did you see what she did to my Faith?

Angel: Hadn't made plans to weep over that one.

Mayor: Well, I'd get set for some weeping if I were you. I'd get set for a world of hurt. Misery loves company, young man, and I'll be looking to share mine with you and your whore.

Angel tosses him at this point. Again, the Mayor takes off because the plot demands he not just decide to dust Angel then and there. 

Buffy dreams of Faith.

Buffy: There's something I'm supposed to be doing.

Faith: Oh yeah. Miles to go. Little Miss Muffet counting down from seven three oh.

As we all know by now, this is a reference to Dawn’s arrival and Buffy’s eventual death.

Buffy: I can't use all this. 

Faith: Just take what you need.

Someone might know better than me what this means. I took it as Faith telling Buffy just to take what knowledge she needs from Faith (the Mayor’s human weakness). When Buffy wakes up she gives the comatose Faith a kiss. Now she’s got a plan. Angel helps her figure out what Faith meant...that she is his human weakness. Did we ever get confirmation if this was just Buffy’s dream or some kind of weird Slayer link?

Wesley returns to help, which Cordelia thinks is “so classy”. Unfortunately their kiss isn’t and they silently agree to part ways. 

The Mayor attempts to give his entire speech before Ascending. It’s the 100th anniversary of the founding of Sunnydale. But his transformation comes early and, in the words of Joss, he transforms into an “unholy big ass snake thing”. The parents turn and run but the students rip off their robes to reveal weapons which was just...one of the coolest moments I’ve ever seen on TV. I always get so emotional over this. All the students working together...*tears up like a proud old lady*. Larry dies, which is unfortunate. He was growing on me. Couldn’t it have been Percy the asshole?

I loved when the vampires shout to get the kids and, again in the words of Joss, “fuggin Braveheart ensues”. Don’t mess with the class of ‘99, yo. Jonathan looks more than happy to let some repressed rage out on the vampires. Xander tries to keep order but the battle becomes complete chaos. Buffy lures the Mayor with Faith’s bloody knife and they blow up the school.

Joss is full of sass in this script. He writes that people are standing around post-battle hugging, crying “probably not crying. they're extras--but we can always hope”. Meow.

After the battle Giles gives Buffy her diploma, which he fished out of the wreckage. I once found this sweet but now I just think did you get everyone else’s, Giles? Did you? DID YOU?

Buffy and Angel look at each other from a distance. There’s a moment where it appears he’s giving her the chance...if she really wants him to stay, he’ll stay. But something in her face changes and she suddenly knows it’s right. He can go. And he does.

Oz: Guys. Take a moment to deal with this. We survived.

Buffy: It was a hell of a battle.

Oz: Not that battle. High school.

The final shot is of the Sunnydale yearbook: The Future is Ours.

Character Notes:

Rupert Giles: While Buffy is off fighting Faith, Giles chooses to drink coffee instead of tea because “he wishes to be tense”. He forces the gang to pack up every single book in the library before they blow it up, which I found adorable. Little book lover.

Buffy Summers: She calls Xander and Angel “little old ladies” for bickering.

Xander Harris: He’s full of pride and humility but also mind-numbing fear for being a key to the plan. He’s very clear that he’s the important one when forced to coordinate with Angel. He’s thrilled they blew up the school. I think the symbolism there worked for him.

Willow Rosenberg: She’s late for graduation because she was sleeping with Oz. After the battle she says she enjoyed kicking demon ass.

Wesley Wyndam Pryce: He’s knocked out before he can fight a single vampire. We see him loaded into a stretcher and asking to be knocked out.

[tl-notes]

Konosuba Episode 3 Notes

You've probably seen these leaf umbrellas before. They are inspired by irl butterbur leaves (or rather, a specific, large subspecies of it that is native to northern Japan), which are fuggin huge and have long, thick (veiny) stems you can hold them with, and as such can be used as a makeshift umbrella. It’s same species of plant that they made tempura out of in noted Good-Anime-Set-In-Northern-Japan, Flying Witch.

They have an association with Koropukkur, which are kind of like fairy/dwarf/elves in Ainu folklore—their name basically translates to “the people under the [butterbur] leaves”—who are often depicted holding them.

If you hadn't noticed, all the episode names (excluding s1e1) follow the same pattern as the series title: “Kono ______ ni _______ wo”. Kono means “this,” -ni is a particle that indicates indirect object status (among several other things, it’s quite versatile), and -wo is a particle that indicates direct object status (grammatically, like subject/object/verb). So you’ve got no subject or verb, just the direct and indirect objects, which is Japanese as fuck.

As a comparatively high context language, you’re free to drop many more parts of the sentence in Japanese than you can in English. This is why you get stuff like one-word lines turning into a whole sentence in the subs sometimes. It’s also the source of a lot of Japanese humor and drama. When you’re able to leave out the subject, object, and/or verb in a sentence, it’s easy to write a dialogue where the characters think they’re talking about the same thing, but aren't (as an example).

This also makes it hell to translate sometimes, as this is often used as a tool to keep information away from characters or the audience. It’s a lot easier to write cryptic conversations when, again, you don’t need subjects or objects.

Warning Feel free to skip this entry, it's long and boring. Warning

The words used to refer to different types of employment are actually fairly well defined in Japan. The two used here are naishoku and (aru)baito, but there’s also part-time, keiyaku-shain, and sei-shain. All these are common words you’ll see when looking through job ads:

Naishoku is work you do at home, and generally pays per task done, not an hourly wage or salary. When Aqua says “I’m being paid more” she specifically says the amount she gets paid per carton has gone up.

Baito (short for arubaito, which comes from the German word for work, arbeit) is work done “on the side” of some other thing that’s your main focus. Most often, that thing is high school or college, though it can also be another job that doesn't pay as much as you’d like or doesn't give you enough hours, like a lot of artsy work (indie band, new/unpopular seiyuu/mangaka/animators/authors, etc.), or even just “looking for a ‘real’ job.” It was originally used as a code word by students, who were often forbidden from having a job. If you’ve heard the word “freeter,” it comes from “freelance arbeiter.”

Part-time (or part-timer, or just part), is basically the same thing as it is in English, except it’s almost always used to refer to women, particularly housewives who want to make a little money on the side. It doesn't have to, but the connotation is strong enough to the point you see a lot of people online asking “I'm a man, can I apply to this job that says it's looking for part-timers?”

Keiyaku-shain (contract employees) are usually full time employees but with a distinct duration to their employment contract and usually lacking in a lot of the legal protections afforded normal employees. This style of employment has become all the rage lately, as it allows employers to skirt a bunch of labor laws, and they can just renew your contract as long as they want to keep you on. It’s said this trend is the cause of a lot of the job insecurity that people say they feel when asked about why they aren't getting married or having kids. Good luck on raising that birth rate, Japan!

Sei-shain (full employees) are just that, regular employees with all the associated legal protections, of which Japan technically has a lot of. This is a pretty highly sought-after status nowadays.

This list was ordered by “generally lowest paying” to “generally highest paying.”

As you may have noticed, he says the same thing both times in the Japanese: うつなよ (utsunayo). Utsu is the verb for “to shoot/fire,” sticking “-na” at the end turns it into a strong command to not shoot, and the yo is for flavor; also just “utsuna” by itself sounds a little harsh.

Ironically, adding -na to a different conjugation of the verb instead turns it into a command TO do the thing, instead of not do it. E.g. if he’d said uchinayo instead of utsunayo it would completely reverse the meaning.

The Japanese here doesn't actually make it clear the person is male (not that it particularly matters here). For such a gendered language, it’s interesting there are so many ways to avoid bringing up the gender of whoever you’re talking about. Megumin specifically uses the word “soitsu,” which in addition to being pretty gender neutral also doesn't show any respect, which is indicative of how she feels about this guy despite his supposed greatness.

“Foresight” here in the Japanese is 千里眼 (senrigan), which is basically “thousand-ri eyes” (a ri is roughly 4 kilometres*). It seems to have originated in ancient China, as things often do, when a particular general(?) had a particularly good spy network; it was said “his eyes see for a thousand ri.” It sounds hella cool so it gets used in games/anime/manga/etc. and shit a lot as a skill name, generally for “clairvoyance” type skills.

*Amount varies by country and time period. Also it's typically written with an L when referring to the Chinese version.

Minor detail, but he specifies “on your few strengths” here too, though using a different word from the one that was translated as “few” in the previous line. There’s a long-running Japanese meme of “[it’s] important so [I/you] said it twice” (大事なことなので二回言いました) that might apply here. Given the, the uh, the circumstances.

Bit of foreshadowing/punning here. The word for “the living” is 生者, alternatively pronounced seisha, shouja, or seija. She uses seija. Seija, when using these kanji: 聖者, instead means saint/holy person.

And we see what kind of person the undead actually chase after.

Specifically he’s making the ふーん (fu-n) sound here, which when used in real life sounds like hmmm, but with more of an 'n' sound. It’s the sound people make when being told some sort of fact; depending on the tone used it either indicates “huh, that’s an interesting fact!” or “cool story bro.” All this to say I cracked up at how clearly he enunciated the f/h at the start of his ふーん.

What’s translated as “keen eyes” is actually a bit more poetic sounding: “kumori-naki manako” (曇りなき眼). It uses a fancy word for eyes (which is usually just “me” 目), and a mildly fancy way of saying “unclouded”: kumori (clouded) naki (not).

It’s also a phrase famously used in Princess Mononoke, which they are undoubtedly referencing.

He’s saying “sensei” here, which is traditionally what (generally wealthy) people would call their bodyguards back in like the Edo period. Or, more importantly, it’s what the bad rich guy says to call his strong, mercenary bodyguard after the heroes have defeated his cannon fodder lackeys in all those TV shows set in the Edo period. You’ll hear this usage in anime/manga a fair bit when the one kid loses a fight and then calls in their older, stronger (often yakuza- or gang-involved) friend.

Not that it matters, but since I'm here…: the catnip part of this was added in translation.

The last sentence of this is written like it was taken from the back of a box of medicine, and in fact the whole thing does generally sound like

a drug ad.