A Crazy Panda

Welcome to my Tsurune translation! I’m basically translating the book whenever I have time, so, uh, don’t expect updates anytime soon (at least not until I finish DIVE!!) 

Tsurune is written by Kotoko Ayano, with illustrations by Chinatsu Morimoto. It won the Grand Judge award at the 7th Kyoto Animation Awards in 2016. It also has a PV and you probably heard that it’s getting an anime in 2018.

Tsurune follows Minato, a boy who used to be really into kyudo (Japanese archery) until something happened at his last competition in middle school, after which he lost his confidence and quit. When he goes to high school, he has no intention for joining the kyudo club, despite the urging of his friends, but when he stumbles upon an archer practicing in the woods, he decides to do kyudo once more.

Some things to clarify:

- Tsurune refers the “sound of a vibrating bowstring”

- There’s going to be a lot of untranslated terms since kyudo is pretty different from the archery most of us know (still debating whether or not just to translate kyudo as archery) 

Will this become Kyoto Animation’s next female-oriented cash cow? Read on and find out!

Translation Notes

1. A coma is a nebulous envelope around the nucleus of a comet (according to Wikipedia)

2. Izume is a way to determine the final rankings for a kyudo competition. Basically, everyone shoots their arrows, and when someone misses, they’re out. The one who wins first place is the one continuously hits the target.

3. Enkin kyousha is another way to determine rankings of archers who have missed the center of the target and are tied for the same place. Each archer shoots an arrow, and whoever’s arrow is closest to the bull’s-eye gets the highest rank.

4. Tsuruoto is written with the same kanji as tsurune (弦音).

Full list of translations will be here.

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What sound is this?

Wind, gather, someone was singing.

In the midst of the dancing reddened leaves, a boy was searching for the source of the mysterious tone that he heard from somewhere. He didn’t look old enough to go to elementary school. His clear eyes concealed the power to stop the tracks of those who saw them, as though they were roaming through a gloomy forest and got captivated by a glittering river surface. The thing that caused the boy’s eyes to brighten like that was there.

It was an archer. An archer who was shooting an arrow at a target.

There were two targets. Clad in white hakama, the clothing for kyudo, a middle-aged man and an elderly man took turns shooting arrows.

The moment an arrow left, a high twang sound rang out.

As if chasing that beautiful sound, the arrows made a sound as they pierced their target, followed by cheers of “Alright!” that covered it. The cheers came from a group of high school students sitting in the spectator stands, as though they were singing a round.

It was a scene at a shrine that his mother had just happened to bring him to for a short visit. There was a crowd around the kyudojo at the back of the shrine grove, like the final round of a tournament was going on.

His mother, who was left behind, placed her hand on the shoulder of the boy who had squeezed himself into the gaps of the crowd.

“Minato, there you are. You ran ahead so suddenly. Mom was so surprised, you know.”

“Sorry. Hey, Mom, what’s that?”

“It’s a kyudo competition. The person who gets the most hits wins. If there’s a tie for first place, each person would keep firing arrows one by one, and the person who doesn’t miss until the end wins.”

“Oh, that sounds like fun.”

“It looks easy, but hitting all the targets ten times is impossible to achieve if you’re not an incredibly skilled archer. Mom used to do kyudo in high school, but it would have been great if I even hit half of them.”

“So kyudo is that hard…”

The men finished four rounds without reaching an outcome, and the black bull’s-eye on the white target became a size smaller from the coma-like (1) pattern circling on the target. Though they shot for more than four rounds, still neither of them missed the target.

Suddenly, the place became noisy.

“It’s amazing, how they are still not missing the target…Probably because Yasaka-sensei, who’s usually in the referee’s seat, is participating. Shall I say, ‘Just as expected?’”

“Since they keep doing izume (2) without switching into enkin kyousha (3), isn’t the physically younger one at more of an advantage?” Similar conversations reached the boy’s ears.

A middle school boy was standing by himself, watching the match with intense concentration. His long fingers trembled slightly.

That boy asked about what he had been most curious about earlier.

“What’s that ‘twang’ sound?”

“Oh, that’s tsurune. It’s the sound the bowstring makes when an arrow is shot. The thump sound when the arrow hits the target is called matooto.”

“Tsu-ru-ne? Sounds like an instrument.”

“That’s true. Just like an instrument, the sound is different depending on the bow and ability. Originally, it seemed that the tsuruoto (4) that was above all others was called tsurune, for beautiful sounds that had especially clear reverberations. Even if the same person uses the same bow, it will not always sound the same. Because bows and people are sensitive, they are very easily affected by the weather and the condition of the mind.”

“—I want to try kyudo.”

“Fufu, how wonderful. If Minato is in a tournament, Mom will cheer you on with all her heart.”

“Really? You have to come and see me do my best. Promise?”

“Okay, I promise.”

A great sigh went out from the venue. Someone had missed their twentieth shot.

The area had turned completely silent. The sound of swallowing his breath burned his ears, and his skin stung with pain. Everyone’s attention was fixed on the lone elderly man standing on the kyudojo.

He slowly pulled back his beautiful yumi bow, its length boasted as unparalleled in the world.

After a long, long time, the arrow was released at the target.

A tsurune that soared to the heavens. Matooto.

“All right!” Everyone cheered.

His heart would not stop pounding.

I want to make a tsurune that sounds like that too—.

The boy thought that, when the kyudojo was engulfed a huge round of applause.