tai !!◝ ⩊ ◜

Finally, I can celebrate finishing my exams by drawing B) Saw someone do this pose on pinterest and had to draw my favorite trio doing it as well ;)

in my other post about ans chapter 59, @nokaru said this in the tags:

#this is super interesting thank u!#obizen#there has been the discussion about whatever the guys meant like as like as a friend or like as romantically before cause English can't just#convey that#love them sm

and if theres a discussion, i might as well put my own two cents into the mix haha

let's start off by translating these pages that end chapter 58 (too lazy to get screenshots of the official translation, but it should be more or less the same. also that would be a lot of pictures in one set):

オビ おまえ obi, you 俺の事 好きだろう like me, right? はい yes …即答か ...an instant answer, huh いいけどな though that's fine 訊いといて you asked... 白雪の事も？ and shirayuki? はい yes 俺は お嬢さんの事が好きですよ i like my lady

first, i want to point something out to anyone who has any basic knowledge of japanese who may be confused when they see them using "[someone] no koto ga suki desu" instead of the usual textbook sentence of "[someone] ga suki desu." when you add "no koto" to a person in a sentence, the literal translation stays the same. "ore wa kimi no koto ga suki desu" means "i like you" the same way "ore wa kimi ga suki desu" means "i like you". however, "xyz no koto" literally means "things about/of xyz," so very subtly, it can change the meaning from "i like you" to "i like everything about you" ie your appearance, your behavior, your personality, basically everything related to you.

what i also want to point out to everyone is that zen's question about himself is the same as obi's answer on his feelings for shirayuki. "ore no koto suki darou" [zen asking if obi likes him] vs "ore wa ojousan no koto ga suki desu yo" [obi saying he likes shirayuki].

so, really, another way to translate those sentences could be "obi, you like everything about me, right?" and "i like everything about my lady."

i don't think anyone reading chapters 58 and 59 would read obi's last line here and think of it as anything other than romantic in connotation. this is clearly obi confessing to zen that he likes shirayuki in a romantic way. the rest of the conversation just doesn't make much sense if you only look at it in a platonic way, since obi makes it clear he didn't want to hide something like that from zen, especially if he was going to go be with her while zen had to stay in the castle.

so... if you can really only read obi's line about shirayuki in a romantic way... and the same exact phrasing is used when talking about zen... wouldn't the simplest explanation be that obi also has the same romantic feelings towards zen?

now, yes, "好き (suki)" doesn't have to mean "romantic like." but when looking at the context here, i personally find it hard not to read the conversation about zen as anything but romantic in nature.

what i think the actual question should be is... is obi being serious when he answers zen's first question?

this would be the only argument i would accept as having enough merit to prove to me that this specific part of the conversation isn't romantic while the conversation about shirayuki is. we know that obi has said some flirtatious things to zen before this chapter. these occasions are pretty much played as a joke in the manga, a way for obi to tease zen mostly.

is he doing the same thing here? their little exchange after obi says "yes" could lend proof to that theory. i would say it's up to each person's own interpretations of obi's character on how sincere he's being.

as for my own answer?

well. i would just like to point out these two panels of obi's face. him saying "yes" doesn't seem like the only thing his responses have in common.

original japanese vs official english translation

i finally got around to rereading ans and when i came across zens last line here in chapter 59 i got really curious as to what the original japanese was, so i looked up a raw version of the chapter to see, and what i found made me a little disappointed about what the official translation did here.

let me start with the literal word-by-word translation of the original japanese text (i dont have a problem with the first part's translation, but since the "tokkuni" in that first panel is part of what zen says in the last panel, i might as well do the rest of the panel while im here)

ただ tada [but/however] お前の手綱とやらを俺から返す気はないけどな omae no tedzuna [your leash/reigns] toyara [denotes uncertainty/secondhand info ("something like that"/"so-called xyz")] wo [marks the previous words as the object of the sentence] ore kara [from me] kaesu [to return] kiwanai [no intention of doing xyz/don't feel like doing xyz] kedo [but] na [sentence ender to emphasize what was just said, similar to "okay?"] とっくに tokkuni [something that's been happening since a long time ago/already] わりと気に入ってる warito [a little/kinda/relatively] ki ni itteru [being pleased with/taking a liking to]

now how would i have translated this?

however i have no intention of handing over your "leash" since i've already been growing a bit fond of you for a while now

i'll admit it's not a final draft translation, but what i want to emphasize here is zen's use of "気に入ってる" which the official translation put as "been a fan of." knowing what the original japanese was, it makes the line feel... impersonal, almost, to me.

this scene comes after obi has admitted to zen that he likes both zen and shirayuki. what we have here is the start of zen's response to that confession, a confession that used the word "好き." now, while both "好き" and "気に入ってる" can technically be translated as "to like," "好き" is a more enduring form of "like" while "気に入ってる" is more of the beginnings of "liking" something or someone, like you have accepted and enjoy them.

given all of this, i personally don't like the choice to use "been a fan of." yes, it would be misleading to reuse the word "like" here, since zen is not matching obi's level of "like," but he's still saying this as a response to that level of "like." it's why i would've been adamant to stick to a translation that uses the word "fond" or something similar. being fond of someone isn't the same as [romantically] liking them, but it still conveys a sense of warmth that comes from "気に入ってる" that i feel is lacking in "been a fan of."

he's not fooling anyone

Mine’s backstory from the Yakuza Online event. This one is a rather long story and explains how and why Mine became a member of the Yakuza, his relationship with Kanda and, of course, how he met Daigo.