Visions fugitives

To celebrate the end of the anime I wanted to put together a set with a scene from each arc (or in chimera ant arc’s case a few since it’s so long). The anime was as good of an adaptation as anyone could ever ask for, it was a blessing that Madhouse was the one to do it. I’ve never seen such a high quality long-running shonen anime and it was amazing seeing how they translated the manga into animation.

It’s sad to see it end but don’t forget the manga is still ongoing! When it’s not on hiatus, anyway.

Yes. Hello. Excuse me. But can I bother you for a moment to show you what is not only (an excerpt from) one of my favorite matches in Hikaru no Go but also a perfect example of why the manga is so gosh darn good? (Note: Read right to left.)

Look at all of the panels with Hikaru. Speed lines everywhere, sound effects in big, jagged bubbles, motion lines showing his hand leaving the stone, and aside from the first move shown here, each additional one only takes up one panel. He is playing speed Go, a fact that would be made painfully obvious even without the translation due to the layout and drawings.

Now look at his opponent’s panels. The shots include more details, the angle is generally from above instead of the side, he takes multiple panels to make his moves, we see his hand still on the stone with a calm “pa-chi” bubble, and he takes time to talk while Hikaru stays silent, even responding to the bystander yelling at them. He is playing at a normal pace, a slower pace. There is no urgency in it, and we can tell simply by how it’s drawn.

This is not the most important match in the series, nor is it the most suspenseful, but what it does it does with such perfection that I can’t help but adore it. This is only a portion - as the match goes on, something happens: the opponent, and subsequently the art, falls into Hikaru’s pace. He doesn’t want to, but as he gets caught up in it, we see his panels start to look more like Hikaru’s - less detailed, more sense of movement - and that’s what truly makes this match so great. See, because of how it’s written, laid out, and drawn, it ends up being not just the opponent that gets caught in Hikaru’s pace, but the reader as well. Hikaru’s energy is contagious, and it’s hard not to speed through the pages as fast as Hikaru is playing.

There’s no intense soundtrack, no excitable voice acting, the images aren’t animated, and yet with the drawings and layout alone, the differing paces can be felt through the pages. And this is just one throwaway game in the midst of many, many others of far more importance.

The writing of the series alone is fantastic. Pairing it with this level of art and composition makes the whole package about as near perfect as one could hope for.

I recently finished Kingdom Hearts 3D for the second time.

And it is hard to think that this game was not especially intended for us, Soriku fans. I mean, this game exudes Soriku intimacy and tenderness from its beginning to its end.

The game, itself, is much fun to play – though I’ll admit some skepticism about the dream eater breeding thing. It was a pleasure to wander in the new worlds, and particularly Fantasia. The concept of the parallel actions of Riku and Sora, interfering in each other’s worlds, was a nice idea, and it would have been perfect if this “distant interaction” between the two of them had been as perfectly done in each world as it is in the first (Traverse Town) and last one (ah, and more metaphorically, in Fantasia). Which is not the case in the first three worlds following Traverse Town, where Riku and Sora only act, independently, as supporting characters for the world’s main plot.

(And it is especially painful in Tron Legacy, where all the characters are just as awfully uninteresting as they are in the movie.)

But what was really refreshing, in this game, was probably the total absence of Kairi (which is much better than her artificial and cliché involvement in KH2), and of any implied romantic feelings between Sora and Kairi. Sora, actually, doesn’t think about her even once, not even during the ending scene – while his relationship with Riku has literally become entwined, with Riku diving in Sora’s heart.

Let’s make things clear here : we do not criticize Kairi because she’s a girl and because we only like promoting homosexual couples. We criticize Kairi since until now her character remains terribly bland. And it was also the case for Sora and Riku at the beginning (KH1), but both of them benefited from interesting character development (which was fine for Sora, and exceptional for Riku), while Kairi, who originally had no part in the plot of KH2, suddenly became… the girl to rescue. And the intimacy and complicity that Sora begins to share with Riku at the end of KH2 and all through KH3D is shown as much stronger and deeper than everything we could witness between him and Kairi. Under these circumstances, there is no reason for us to promote a Sora / Kairi couple, since we firstly base our “couple” notion on what both people really, deeply share with each other.

And KH3D gives us plenty of occasions to appreciate the strength, the tenderness, and the passion of the bond between Riku and Sora. So many occasions, actually, that it is difficult to decide which is the cutest of them.

Is it in Traverse Town when Riku is disappointed as he realizes he can’t touch Sora through his hologram ? (photo)

Is it when Sora confidently says that he’s connected to Riku with his heart ?

Is it when Sora hears Riku’s voice in The World That Never Was ?

Is it when Sora only thinks about Riku when his strength is abandoning him ?

Is it when Riku dives in Sora’s heart and must collect 30 bodies of Sora ? (…)

Is it when Riku has to answer three questions related to his devotion to Sora ?

It is when Sora majorly hugs Riku while they exchange tender looks ?

Or it is, maybe, when we think about the subtext regarding Riku being Sora’s dream eater ?

(We would be curious to know how Sora breeds him, and where he pets him…)

Knowing what the next opus will make of this intimacy is however a true question. First, we can be pretty sure that the Soriku couple will not be made official. Remember ? Homosexuality is fine, as long as it doesn’t concern main characters. Second, we know that Kairi will probably play an important role in it. That could be the chance to develop her character in an original way. But we really hope that this won’t just be a poor excuse to place the Sora / Kairi couple at the center of the game in order to make up for the disappointment of those who can’t stand the idea of a Sora / Riku couple and who had to go through KH3D all the same.

And this point can be summed up as follows : can we expect a non-consensual ending in a game in which Disney is directly implied ?

Now that we have seen Wreck It Ralph, we shall not say that it is impossible. But it might be reasonable to say to we can’t expect it to be completely iconoclast.

Is it when Riku says he knows the feeling of wanting to protect the ONE person that matters (not “matters MOST”, just the one)?

Is it when Riku very fondly comments on Sora’s “stupid grin” (multiple times), and calls him the best teacher he could ever have?

Is it when Riku gushes about “how Sora is”, how it’s hard not to smile around Sora (though he seems to try very hard)?

Is it when Sora and Riku walk off together into the light (again) after the credits?

Is it when Riku and Sora’s hearts are said to be in tune with each other (because they hold onto a piece of one another) so their hearts can sing in harmony- a harmony that coincidentally comes together to create the main theme, “Dearly Beloved”?

I recently finished Kingdom Hearts 3D for the second time.

And it is hard to think that this game was not especially intended for us, Soriku fans. I mean, this game exudes Soriku intimacy and tenderness from its beginning to its end.

The game, itself, is much fun to play – though I’ll admit some skepticism about the dream eater breeding thing. It was a pleasure to wander in the new worlds, and particularly Fantasia. The concept of the parallel actions of Riku and Sora, interfering in each other’s worlds, was a nice idea, and it would have been perfect if this “distant interaction” between the two of them had been as perfectly done in each world as it is in the first (Traverse Town) and last one (ah, and more metaphorically, in Fantasia). Which is not the case in the first three worlds following Traverse Town, where Riku and Sora only act, independently, as supporting characters for the world’s main plot.

(And it is especially painful in Tron Legacy, where all the characters are just as awfully uninteresting as they are in the movie.)

But what was really refreshing, in this game, was probably the total absence of Kairi (which is much better than her artificial and cliché involvement in KH2), and of any implied romantic feelings between Sora and Kairi. Sora, actually, doesn’t think about her even once, not even during the ending scene – while his relationship with Riku has literally become entwined, with Riku diving in Sora’s heart.

Let’s make things clear here : we do not criticize Kairi because she’s a girl and because we only like promoting homosexual couples. We criticize Kairi since until now her character remains terribly bland. And it was also the case for Sora and Riku at the beginning (KH1), but both of them benefited from interesting character development (which was fine for Sora, and exceptional for Riku), while Kairi, who originally had no part in the plot of KH2, suddenly became… the girl to rescue. And the intimacy and complicity that Sora begins to share with Riku at the end of KH2 and all through KH3D is shown as much stronger and deeper than everything we could witness between him and Kairi. Under these circumstances, there is no reason for us to promote a Sora / Kairi couple, since we firstly base our “couple” notion on what both people really, deeply share with each other.

And KH3D gives us plenty of occasions to appreciate the strength, the tenderness, and the passion of the bond between Riku and Sora. So many occasions, actually, that it is difficult to decide which is the cutest of them.

Is it in Traverse Town when Riku is disappointed as he realizes he can’t touch Sora through his hologram ? (photo)

Is it when Sora confidently says that he’s connected to Riku with his heart ?

Is it when Sora hears Riku’s voice in The World That Never Was ?

Is it when Sora only thinks about Riku when his strength is abandoning him ?

Is it when Riku dives in Sora’s heart and must collect 30 bodies of Sora ? (…)

Is it when Riku has to answer three questions related to his devotion to Sora ?

It is when Sora majorly hugs Riku while they exchange tender looks ?

Or it is, maybe, when we think about the subtext regarding Riku being Sora’s dream eater ?

(We would be curious to know how Sora breeds him, and where he pets him…)

Knowing what the next opus will make of this intimacy is however a true question. First, we can be pretty sure that the Soriku couple will not be made official. Remember ? Homosexuality is fine, as long as it doesn’t concern main characters. Second, we know that Kairi will probably play an important role in it. That could be the chance to develop her character in an original way. But we really hope that this won’t just be a poor excuse to place the Sora / Kairi couple at the center of the game in order to make up for the disappointment of those who can’t stand the idea of a Sora / Riku couple and who had to go through KH3D all the same.

And this point can be summed up as follows : can we expect a non-consensual ending in a game in which Disney is directly implied ?

Now that we have seen Wreck It Ralph, we shall not say that it is impossible. But it might be reasonable to say to we can’t expect it to be completely iconoclast.

Is it when Riku says he knows the feeling of wanting to protect the ONE person that matters (not “matters MOST”, just the one)?

Is it when Riku very fondly comments on Sora’s “stupid grin” (multiple times), and calls him the best teacher he could ever have?

Is it when Riku gushes about “how Sora is”, how it’s hard not to smile around Sora (though he seems to try very hard)?

Is it when Sora and Riku walk off together into the light (again) after the credits?

Is it when Riku and Sora’s hearts are said to be in tune with each other (because they hold onto a piece of one another) so their hearts can sing in harmony- a harmony that coincidentally comes together to create the main theme, “Dearly Beloved”?

Hey everyone, welcome to yet another addition of HXH translation meta with your old pal hunterxhell. This time, I’m taking a look at what I think is, hands-down, one of if not the most important scenes in HXH for understanding Killua and his feelings for Gon. In fact, I’m going to make the case that this scene proves that those feelings are romantic in nature. Unfortunately, the translation for this scene was absolutely butchered (it’s by far the worst translation in the series), so all of the meaning was lost, including the wonderful Killugon subtext.

So, well, despite the scene where Ikalgo pretty much confirms the interpretation of Killua’s very romantic thought of dying with Gon, expect to read that there’s no gay canon Killua at all because hey, Shinjuu can also be used without this strong subtext so no homo ok ? ;-)

Hey everyone, welcome to yet another addition of HXH translation meta with your old pal hunterxhell. This time, I’m taking a look at what I think is, hands-down, one of if not the most important scenes in HXH for understanding Killua and his feelings for Gon. In fact, I’m going to make the case that this scene proves that those feelings are romantic in nature. Unfortunately, the translation for this scene was absolutely butchered (it’s by far the worst translation in the series), so all of the meaning was lost, including the wonderful Killugon subtext.

1) Read that post

this is actually a scene i’m planning to discuss in depth very soon. i think a large portion of the fandom on tumblr is probably aware of it already, but every post i’ve seen about it has had some misinformation so i’m planning to clear all of that up. additionally, i haven’t seen a translation that conveys the correct meaning (in scanlations or viz’s official manga release), and it was COMPLETELY butchered by crunchyroll to the point where what killua is saying is totally incomprehensible imo

again, i wanna make a real post going into detail about it, but just compare these translations (note that i’m paraphrasing both of them)

crunchyroll’s version:

killua: once i’m charged, i’m gonna go find gon. you go find knuckle, review the situation and retreat if you need to.meleoron: what about you two?killua: gon won’t budge in the state he’s in. at worst, he’ll trade his life for pitou’s.

what is actually being said is more like:

killua: once i’m charged, i’m gonna go find gon. you go find knuckle, review the situation and retreat if you need to.meleoron: what about you two?killua: gon won’t budge in the state he’s in. at worst, gon and i will die together*, i guess

*the word killua uses implies that they will die as lovers, you can also translate the line as “at worst, a lovers’ suicide will happen, i guess”.

that’s why, right after, meleoron is looking at killua all seriously and killua is like “it’s a joke, we’ll be fine!!”

doesn’t that make a LOT more sense than killua making a “joke” about gon dying by killing pitou???

and then what’s great is, right after, meleoron (internally) is like “killua… are you REALLY joking…?”

bottom line is, kILLUA IS REFERRING TO HIMSELF AND GON HERE. i have no idea how crunchyroll fucked this up so bad.

Some time ago we had posted a few things on our blog regarding these translation points, but we had faced a lot of circumspection, even hostility, in a part of the HxH community, who accused us of saying nonsense and biasing the understanding of our readers, for various reasons (e.g. willingly not displaying the original Japanese extract of the manga (which we just couldn’t scan), not being familiar enough with Killua to know he’s definitely not a fatalist and wouldn’t go die with Gon of his own will, etc.).

So your contribution here will be MUCH appreciated. Can’t wait to read your meta !