I've been... depressed and afraid, if I'm honest! I have twelve years of experience in tech, but the job market is a garbage fire, so I've been out of work for coming up on a full year. I ran out of unemployment and made the hard decision to go back to school and finish my Bachelor's.
And this first semester, where I was too late to apply for any financial aid and I can't really apply for scholarships because I don't have any transcripts to show for myself — it's especially scary. I am just in this awful financial free fall, and it's taking a real toll on me. Depression Brain is definitely taking all my energy right now.
I love translating, but I am in that phase of depression where even things you love are just. So hard to do.
I will be back, I promise. But now you know what's happening. Perhaps more honestly than any of you wanted to!
Quick lil update: I am obviously back! I am also employeed again, though coming up on a week of vacation time.
I have been making my way steadily through the older chapters of Re;surrection and also Re; and making updates to my translations. Some of them are really old! Some of them had typos, or incorrect image links, or no sound effect translations... some of them I'm updating because I'm better now at Japanese than I was, some of them because I've changed my mind about how I want to translate a given term and it's a term used throughout.
Anyway, that's what's happening! I just finished updating my translation for Chapter 12 of Re; — so, three more to go on it — and then I'll be making another pass on earlier chapters of Re;surrection, and THEN I'll be translating the remaining chapters of it.
I'm also reading D.Gray-man in Japanese for the first time which is a lot of fun, and continuing a long-running KH Translation Commentary project (which I haven't published anywhere, I just share it with friends).
All of this is very good for flexing my Japanese Muscles, but not all of it is going to be visible on this blog — unless I come up with a way of editing the KH commentary in a way that I think would be fun to read as anything other than a liveblog, haha.
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Hey so, watch this space 🙂 so to speak. I don't want to count my metaphorical chickens here before they've hatched, but I might be back translating very soon.
Thank you to everyone who's been so patient with the silence!
I've been... depressed and afraid, if I'm honest! I have twelve years of experience in tech, but the job market is a garbage fire, so I've been out of work for coming up on a full year. I ran out of unemployment and made the hard decision to go back to school and finish my Bachelor's.
And this first semester, where I was too late to apply for any financial aid and I can't really apply for scholarships because I don't have any transcripts to show for myself — it's especially scary. I am just in this awful financial free fall, and it's taking a real toll on me. Depression Brain is definitely taking all my energy right now.
I love translating, but I am in that phase of depression where even things you love are just. So hard to do.
I will be back, I promise. But now you know what's happening. Perhaps more honestly than any of you wanted to!
Still working back through older chapters and cleaning them up and adding more sound effects to them.
Just downloaded Chapter 23 Pt 1, which is also calling itself Final, so expect one more part there and possibly an epilogue? There's only one more scene of the movie to cover, which shouldn't take 20 pages, but I guess we'll see!
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For the record: some of these are MUCH lower effort than others. Each "Regret Message" (also (inexplicably?) called character poems) is less than a page, and I only have access to scans of Suzaku/C.C./Nunnally in addition to Kallen, so unless I seek out the CD on eBay and it turns out there are more of them, that's a max of 4 pages to translate.
The Complete R2 profiles for our main four characters are two pages each, and I already have initial translations for Suzaku and Lelouch's (I need to settle on a good translation for 罪, it's all over Suzaku's profile along with 罰 and two separate verbs that could both be translated as "atone") — so I really only need to translate C.C. and Kallen's, then polish it all up...
For the "main" novels, meanwhile, I have a good chunk of another chapter of Stage -3- Knight done, the "I order you to love me" scene, which the official translation made a real hash of, including skipping bits of narration and dialogue, not recognizing transitions to first-person in the narration, confusing metaphors for literal statements, and at one point just clearly not understanding a sentence about Suzaku's thoughts on Euphy, panicking, and inventing some of their own compliments for him to be paying her instead... this scene is exactly why I'm publishing my novel translations instead of keeping it the private practice it was supposed to be, back when I thought, "Oh, I can use the official translations to check my understanding! Training wheels before I try to translate the R2 novels!" ...sweet summer child, 2017!Li, who just assumed Bandai of America's translations of this series were always great......
Meanwhile, Lost Colors is waiting on my copy of the official Japanese game guide to arrive, and then I need to get my Japanese PS2 set back up, and then I need to get good footage of the game, which is a little trickier than you'd think; I wish I could rely on the game's own auto-advance dialogue options, BUT I CAN'T because even at its slowest, it goes too fast, frequently cutting off the vocal performances. 🤣
SO: if Lost Colors finishes first, I'll definitely start on it, but the second-place finisher is almost sure to actually come out first, just because I knew it would be much faster to publish. 🙂
(Also I have scans of Lancelot & Guren and Oz. I have scans of a bunch of data books, as well as my own physical copies of, say, Mutuality, which I meant to include in this poll, but forgot! For Renya, and anything to do with Roze, I need scans before I can make any progress.)
Oh, and I'm going to be opening commissions back up. I still need to translate a josei manga I was sent years ago, whose requester has been truly inhumanly patient, but once that's done, I'll be adding kofi links to posts going forward, and if your favorite doesn't win this poll, you'll have the option of ✨commissioning me ✨ and getting it to the very front of the queue!
(I should add a list of other "easy" fandoms to my header, like Kingdom Hearts and Tales of Vesperia, two games I'm super familiar with and which I have easy access to in Japanese. A good friend asked about how Sora and Riku talk to and about each other, and I'm just doing a close read for her basically for fun in a DM.
Meanwhile, the josei manga has few furigana and I don't even know the characters' names, so it's much much much more labor-intensive, and the ADHD just keeps bouncing off it, BOOOO.)
For the record: some of these are MUCH lower effort than others. Each "Regret Message" (also (inexplicably?) called character poems) is less than a page, and I only have access to scans of Suzaku/C.C./Nunnally in addition to Kallen, so unless I seek out the CD on eBay and it turns out there are more of them, that's a max of 4 pages to translate.
The Complete R2 profiles for our main four characters are two pages each, and I already have initial translations for Suzaku and Lelouch's (I need to settle on a good translation for 罪, it's all over Suzaku's profile along with 罰 and two separate verbs that could both be translated as "atone") — so I really only need to translate C.C. and Kallen's, then polish it all up...
For the "main" novels, meanwhile, I have a good chunk of another chapter of Stage -3- Knight done, the "I order you to love me" scene, which the official translation made a real hash of, including skipping bits of narration and dialogue, not recognizing transitions to first-person in the narration, confusing metaphors for literal statements, and at one point just clearly not understanding a sentence about Suzaku's thoughts on Euphy, panicking, and inventing some of their own compliments for him to be paying her instead... this scene is exactly why I'm publishing my novel translations instead of keeping it the private practice it was supposed to be, back when I thought, "Oh, I can use the official translations to check my understanding! Training wheels before I try to translate the R2 novels!" ...sweet summer child, 2017!Li, who just assumed Bandai of America's translations of this series were always great......
Meanwhile, Lost Colors is waiting on my copy of the official Japanese game guide to arrive, and then I need to get my Japanese PS2 set back up, and then I need to get good footage of the game, which is a little trickier than you'd think; I wish I could rely on the game's own auto-advance dialogue options, BUT I CAN'T because even at its slowest, it goes too fast, frequently cutting off the vocal performances. 🤣
SO: if Lost Colors finishes first, I'll definitely start on it, but the second-place finisher is almost sure to actually come out first, just because I knew it would be much faster to publish. 🙂
(Also I have scans of Lancelot & Guren and Oz. I have scans of a bunch of data books, as well as my own physical copies of, say, Mutuality, which I meant to include in this poll, but forgot! For Renya, and anything to do with Roze, I need scans before I can make any progress.)
Oh, and I'm going to be opening commissions back up. I still need to translate a josei manga I was sent years ago, whose requester has been truly inhumanly patient, but once that's done, I'll be adding kofi links to posts going forward, and if your favorite doesn't win this poll, you'll have the option of ✨commissioning me ✨ and getting it to the very front of the queue!
(I should add a list of other "easy" fandoms to my header, like Kingdom Hearts and Tales of Vesperia, two games I'm super familiar with and which I have easy access to in Japanese. A good friend asked about how Sora and Riku talk to and about each other, and I'm just doing a close read for her basically for fun in a DM.
Meanwhile, the josei manga has few furigana and I don't even know the characters' names, so it's much much much more labor-intensive, and the ADHD just keeps bouncing off it, BOOOO.)
(Shout out once again to @kattkriss! More Schnee here, and more broad references to what happened in Lancelot & Guren, but still nothing that I think you're missing terribly if you haven't read that story.)
(Shout out once again to @kattkriss! More Schnee here, and more broad references to what happened in Lancelot & Guren, but still nothing that I think you're missing terribly if you haven't read that story.)
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(Only 22 pages? Is this really a whole chapter, or is it actually Chapter 14, Pt 1, and I'm missing something again... sigh!! Chapter 15 is properly long... a lot happens in these 22 pages, but hrm. Color me suspicious. @kattkriss sorry to bother you 😔🙏)
(Only 22 pages? Is this really a whole chapter, or is it actually Chapter 14, Pt 1, and I'm missing something again... sigh!! Chapter 15 is properly long... a lot happens in these 22 pages, but hrm. Color me suspicious. @kattkriss sorry to bother you 😔🙏)
Quick housekeeping tip: "not a translation" is my tag for posts or reblogs that aren't (new) translations.
"this friggin post" is a tag for something that is being reblogged repeatedly in a conversation.
(I also think I'm probably done with reblogging that particular "friggin" post, because... yeah, that person is almost certainly just a troll, and wasting all of our time! But for the future 🙂)
Before I met you, I was really just irritated.
I thought: "I want to change the world[2],"
but though I lashed out, recklessly, I didn't actually believe I would be able to change anything.
When I lost my brother, it was like a heavy door had slammed shut behind me.
I wasn't going to let that go. I'd fight to the bitter end. There'd be no going back, I decided.
And then, someday, I'd die — just like my brother had.
To the end, Kouzuki Kallen would follow no leader, serve no master[3].
Dimly, I'd thought that small, stubborn pride would be the end of me.
But then: like a morning star coming into view, you called for me[4].
Whenever I was doing something for your sake, I felt lighter.
No battle was too difficult.
Whenever you directed us to a battlefield, I came running, wanting to be the first one there[5].
I wanted to become a lion, to rip your enemies apart with my teeth.
To dirty myself with any amount of muck[6], so long as it cleared the way for you.
It's strange, really, if you think about it.
It was supposed to be about loathing — and fighting against — Britannian despotism,
but before I knew it, I had all this personal loyalty to you[7].
Hey, Lelouch.
That last moment we had together, with that kiss…
Well, if you'd said I love you[8] back then, it wouldn't have mattered if it was a lie —
I still would have followed you all the way into your personal hell.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Not very characteristic of you, was it.
Wasn't manipulating people by saying that sort of thing one of your talents…?
Yeah, that was so uncharacteristically… gentle.[9]
Is that what you were trying to say, when you told me to live on…?
Even though that sort of gentleness isn't at all why I fell for you[10], heh[11].
Translation notes below the cut. Original Japanese text for you to check yourself transcribed from the above image available at my Dreamwidth link.
[1] This is the title of the first ending theme; other regret messages similarly take their titles from theme songs. This was released as part of an Original Soundtrack CD, after all.
[2] 現実=reality, to be more literal.
[3] 支配者たちに従わなかった = serve/follow/obey no masters/leaders/rulers. IMHO this use of たち makes perfect sense in Japanese, but "serve no masters" sounds somewhat grammatically awkward. Importantly, given what Kallen is about to talk about, I think she's speaking somewhat ironically about how she'd made this small vow to herself, but was about to wind up following/serving/etc Zero.
[4] The verb, 誘う, means to invite or to call for or to take someone along (and also to tempt/lure/entice/seduce); in this case, I think Kallen is referring both literally and metaphorically to Lelouch suddenly calling her on the radio in Stage 2 and guiding her to victory.
[5] Sudden volitional form on this and the next three lines, indicating (in this context) Kallen's strong intention to do [whatever]. The switch here to present-tense isn't literal, but rather a common device in Japanese writing to add a sense of emphasis and immediacy, sort of like when an English sentence begins with "Suddenly…!"
[6] Given the "title", likely a bit of a reference to the lyric 混濁の純潔この身は汚れても / Even if my purity is sullied and this self is dirtied.
[7] だもの is a sentence ending that indicates a reason in a tone of protest, such as 14歳だものね = "You're fourteen," where the speaker is probably pointing out that the person they're talking to is too young (to stay out late, or whatever). In this case, the はずなのに + んだもの is definitely a complaint. She should have been focused on the larger war, but she wound up more focused on her personal loyalty to "Lelouch, ugh" — sort of a sentiment. (Though, I'm sure, affectionate now.)
[8] Strong, dramatic phrasing here, because such strong dramatic phrasing would have swept Kallen off her feet and convinced her, as she elucidates, to follow him anywhere — even if it meant throwing away her morals and working for what she thought, at the time, was a mad tyrant. (Claims I've seen about this line, that Kallen wouldn't have even imagined Lelouch saying it hypothetically if she hadn't been completely sure he loved her — are extremely weird and based on nothing at all, lol.)
[9] Again, the present-tense here adding emphasis.
[10] 好きになった=to come to care about, to learn to like, to fall in love with. This phrase is used platonically as well as romantically (you can, for example, talk about developing a taste for beer this way). Kallen almost certainly means it romantically, of course, given all the givens — but she's not necessarily talking about deep love; this wording could very easily be a crush.
[11] This and "Well" and a couple of other little flourishes have been added to the English in an attempt to convey the very casual tone of Kallen's entire message, which is full to the brim with ね: like she's talking casually, albeit in a heartfelt way, to a friend (or perhaps a boyfriend! if you want to interpret it that way!) — rather than writing a dramatic letter.
None of this means Lelouch didn't or couldn't have had feelings for Kallen, only that she didn't think he did when she kissed him; I would think that was the clear point of the scene, how her eyes were full of emotion afterwards and his eyes were still and unmoved. The fact that he cared about her (to whatever extent) is precisely why he didn't kiss her back in that moment, and tried to make her think he didn't care about her. This is what she refers to as "his gentleness": that he was carefully nonresponsive, rather than kissing her back or telling her he loved her, to spare her direct participation in the Zero Requeim.
別れのキス could mean parting kiss, but ねえ、ルルーシュ。あの別れのキスのとき is still not "Lelouch, about that parting kiss," because のとき changes the meaning. It's ambiguous as to whether あの別れの is modifying キス or とき, and regardless, the kiss was at most something that happened at around the same time as the parting, and...... not a goodbye kiss. For the reasons above, as well as the fact that there was a long pause after the kiss, where Kallen tried to gauge Lelouch's feelings for her, before she said goodbye and walked away from him. Two separate events. If she'd thought Lelouch returned her feelings, she wouldn't have said goodbye and walked away, ergo it was not, nor had it been intended to be, a goodbye kiss. Which doesn't detract from the romance of the scene, just from the romance of the kiss...
The "Word of God" to which I referred was indeed Koshimizu quoting Taniguchi to the other actors in a commentary track, rather than Taniguchi saying it directly himself, and it was about Kallen's reasons for kissing Lelouch rather than Lelouch's feelings... it was his attempt to explain to a young voice actor what her character's motivation was, after she expressed surprise that Kallen would kiss Lelouch at all. (Taniguchi is also now 0/2 here in terms of "actresses correctly intuiting that their characters were supposed to be harboring expressly romantic feelings for Lelouch", which is kind of funny to me personally!)
Also lbr, Taniguchi would hate his words being used this way, he's repeatedly shied away from directly answering this sort of question because, as he's said, he knows that his word carries a lot of weight, no matter how often he tries to tell people that their own interpretation is equally valid... so I guess if you want it to be a goodbye kiss, even despite everything above and how Kallen didn't know she was going to say goodbye until after the kiss was over, go for it? I guess??
愛してる is more dramatic than 好きだ and that is about the extent of the differences (and no, Code Geass isn't the only anime where siblings or other blood relatives have exchanged 愛してる's, and it can be used platonically by parents about their children, etc). None of which means that the imaginary 愛してる in this poem would have been platonic? Obviously it wouldn't have been...?
Regardless, here's a screenshot of my iPhone Japanese dictionary app, Weblio, and Jim Breen, you'll find similar example sentences elsewhere online:
WWWJDIC: Example Display
｢愛する｣は英語でどう表現する？【単語】love...【例文】They are in love...【その他の表現】be fond of... - 1000万語以上収録！英訳・英文・英単語の使い分けならWeblio英和・和英辞書
You may note that, for clarity's sake, some of these sentences have added modifiers, like 愛し合ってる to specify mutual love, and 真に愛する to specify true love, and あなただけを愛し続ける to specify a unique, forever love... almost as if 愛してる doesn't convey all those things by itself, or something.
(Jim Breen's sentences database is in wide use, and explained here. Weblio has additional examples from various sources, like professional translations from English into Japanese of various works (for example, Twilight, lol). Don't mistake anything I'm saying here from claiming that you, as a non-native speaker, wouldn't startle a Japanese friend, or indeed romantic partner, by using 愛してる out of the blue; just understand that it's not a magic spell and doesn't convey some telepathic knowledge on Kallen's part about Lelouch's feelings, good grief.)
Torn between trying for the, like, sixth time now to explain to one of you folks that my objection to this particular kiss being called a "farewell kiss" is a semantic issue with the order of operations in the scene, and just being... completely exasperated that this is the hill we have all apparently chosen to die on, when it's almost the least of the problems with the original translation of this Regret Message.
As I have said now, twice, if the original translation had just included the word "When" in the sentence, that tiny fragment of their translation would've been fine. Inaccurate, in my opinion, to the scene, but not blatantly inaccurate to the Japanese, because yes, AS I HAVE REPEATEDLY SAID, 別れのキス by itself could be translated as parting/farewell/goodbye kiss. Or as "breakup kiss", because 別れる also means that sort of separation.
But:
ねえ、ルルーシュ。あの別れのキスの時、
Lelouch, about that parting kiss...
continues to be inaccurate, because it omits multiple words from the Japanese, changing both Kallen's tone and how this part connects to the rest of her sentence.
If for whatever reason you really need the sentence to contain "parting kiss", instead of how I translated it, which was "That last moment we had together, with that kiss...", then I would suggest: Hey, Lelouch, when we shared that parting kiss...
Or something like that.
Now, the original Regret Message translation would still have had half a dozen other problems, like translating イラついている as "plastered with thorns" instead of "being irritated"; like the strange editorializing about 嘘でもいいから and the stranger footnotes about 愛してる and わかってたでしょう？...
...but at least if they'd put a "when" in the right spot, their version wouldn't have confused people into thinking Kallen was talking about two separate instances, when she is clearly, in this Regret Message, talking about a hypothetical version of events where, after she asked him what she was to him and kissed him, Lelouch had said 愛してる — how if he'd done that, Kallen would have done anything for him, including participate in all the awfulness that led up to his public execution, which she would then have to live with, and which Lelouch not saying those words spared her from.
Are we done now, or am I going to get more replies on this post from people trying to get me to """admit""" that 別れのキス could be translated as parting kiss, lol, something I have never actually denied.
@inspectorpoe You're just embarrassing yourself at this point. I'm sorry Blottyparchment lied to you about this message — whether for internet clout or because they didn't think an accurate translation was shippy enough, who can say, but given their other translations were awkward but fine it's unlikely to be an honest error — but that's not actually my fault.
@inspectorpoe Uh-huh. Gosh, if only I had offered some sort of explanation for my translation of that line, like, maybe in this post you keep replying to, apparently without reading it...?
Idk, am I being trolled. Should I just stop responding. I should probably just stop responding, this has definitely crossed a line into disingenuous, and I doubt it's either fun or edifying for my followers.
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Before I met you, I was really just irritated.
I thought: "I want to change the world[2],"
but though I lashed out, recklessly, I didn't actually believe I would be able to change anything.
When I lost my brother, it was like a heavy door had slammed shut behind me.
I wasn't going to let that go. I'd fight to the bitter end. There'd be no going back, I decided.
And then, someday, I'd die — just like my brother had.
To the end, Kouzuki Kallen would follow no leader, serve no master[3].
Dimly, I'd thought that small, stubborn pride would be the end of me.
But then: like a morning star coming into view, you called for me[4].
Whenever I was doing something for your sake, I felt lighter.
No battle was too difficult.
Whenever you directed us to a battlefield, I came running, wanting to be the first one there[5].
I wanted to become a lion, to rip your enemies apart with my teeth.
To dirty myself with any amount of muck[6], so long as it cleared the way for you.
It's strange, really, if you think about it.
It was supposed to be about loathing — and fighting against — Britannian despotism,
but before I knew it, I had all this personal loyalty to you[7].
Hey, Lelouch.
That last moment we had together, with that kiss…
Well, if you'd said I love you[8] back then, it wouldn't have mattered if it was a lie —
I still would have followed you all the way into your personal hell.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Not very characteristic of you, was it.
Wasn't manipulating people by saying that sort of thing one of your talents…?
Yeah, that was so uncharacteristically… gentle.[9]
Is that what you were trying to say, when you told me to live on…?
Even though that sort of gentleness isn't at all why I fell for you[10], heh[11].
Translation notes below the cut. Original Japanese text for you to check yourself transcribed from the above image available at my Dreamwidth link.
[1] This is the title of the first ending theme; other regret messages similarly take their titles from theme songs. This was released as part of an Original Soundtrack CD, after all.
[2] 現実=reality, to be more literal.
[3] 支配者たちに従わなかった = serve/follow/obey no masters/leaders/rulers. IMHO this use of たち makes perfect sense in Japanese, but "serve no masters" sounds somewhat grammatically awkward. Importantly, given what Kallen is about to talk about, I think she's speaking somewhat ironically about how she'd made this small vow to herself, but was about to wind up following/serving/etc Zero.
[4] The verb, 誘う, means to invite or to call for or to take someone along (and also to tempt/lure/entice/seduce); in this case, I think Kallen is referring both literally and metaphorically to Lelouch suddenly calling her on the radio in Stage 2 and guiding her to victory.
[5] Sudden volitional form on this and the next three lines, indicating (in this context) Kallen's strong intention to do [whatever]. The switch here to present-tense isn't literal, but rather a common device in Japanese writing to add a sense of emphasis and immediacy, sort of like when an English sentence begins with "Suddenly…!"
[6] Given the "title", likely a bit of a reference to the lyric 混濁の純潔この身は汚れても / Even if my purity is sullied and this self is dirtied.
[7] だもの is a sentence ending that indicates a reason in a tone of protest, such as 14歳だものね = "You're fourteen," where the speaker is probably pointing out that the person they're talking to is too young (to stay out late, or whatever). In this case, the はずなのに + んだもの is definitely a complaint. She should have been focused on the larger war, but she wound up more focused on her personal loyalty to "Lelouch, ugh" — sort of a sentiment. (Though, I'm sure, affectionate now.)
[8] Strong, dramatic phrasing here, because such strong dramatic phrasing would have swept Kallen off her feet and convinced her, as she elucidates, to follow him anywhere — even if it meant throwing away her morals and working for what she thought, at the time, was a mad tyrant. (Claims I've seen about this line, that Kallen wouldn't have even imagined Lelouch saying it hypothetically if she hadn't been completely sure he loved her — are extremely weird and based on nothing at all, lol.)
[9] Again, the present-tense here adding emphasis.
[10] 好きになった=to come to care about, to learn to like, to fall in love with. This phrase is used platonically as well as romantically (you can, for example, talk about developing a taste for beer this way). Kallen almost certainly means it romantically, of course, given all the givens — but she's not necessarily talking about deep love; this wording could very easily be a crush.
[11] This and "Well" and a couple of other little flourishes have been added to the English in an attempt to convey the very casual tone of Kallen's entire message, which is full to the brim with ね: like she's talking casually, albeit in a heartfelt way, to a friend (or perhaps a boyfriend! if you want to interpret it that way!) — rather than writing a dramatic letter.
None of this means Lelouch didn't or couldn't have had feelings for Kallen, only that she didn't think he did when she kissed him; I would think that was the clear point of the scene, how her eyes were full of emotion afterwards and his eyes were still and unmoved. The fact that he cared about her (to whatever extent) is precisely why he didn't kiss her back in that moment, and tried to make her think he didn't care about her. This is what she refers to as "his gentleness": that he was carefully nonresponsive, rather than kissing her back or telling her he loved her, to spare her direct participation in the Zero Requeim.
別れのキス could mean parting kiss, but ねえ、ルルーシュ。あの別れのキスのとき is still not "Lelouch, about that parting kiss," because のとき changes the meaning. It's ambiguous as to whether あの別れの is modifying キス or とき, and regardless, the kiss was at most something that happened at around the same time as the parting, and...... not a goodbye kiss. For the reasons above, as well as the fact that there was a long pause after the kiss, where Kallen tried to gauge Lelouch's feelings for her, before she said goodbye and walked away from him. Two separate events. If she'd thought Lelouch returned her feelings, she wouldn't have said goodbye and walked away, ergo it was not, nor had it been intended to be, a goodbye kiss. Which doesn't detract from the romance of the scene, just from the romance of the kiss...
The "Word of God" to which I referred was indeed Koshimizu quoting Taniguchi to the other actors in a commentary track, rather than Taniguchi saying it directly himself, and it was about Kallen's reasons for kissing Lelouch rather than Lelouch's feelings... it was his attempt to explain to a young voice actor what her character's motivation was, after she expressed surprise that Kallen would kiss Lelouch at all. (Taniguchi is also now 0/2 here in terms of "actresses correctly intuiting that their characters were supposed to be harboring expressly romantic feelings for Lelouch", which is kind of funny to me personally!)
Also lbr, Taniguchi would hate his words being used this way, he's repeatedly shied away from directly answering this sort of question because, as he's said, he knows that his word carries a lot of weight, no matter how often he tries to tell people that their own interpretation is equally valid... so I guess if you want it to be a goodbye kiss, even despite everything above and how Kallen didn't know she was going to say goodbye until after the kiss was over, go for it? I guess??
愛してる is more dramatic than 好きだ and that is about the extent of the differences (and no, Code Geass isn't the only anime where siblings or other blood relatives have exchanged 愛してる's, and it can be used platonically by parents about their children, etc). None of which means that the imaginary 愛してる in this poem would have been platonic? Obviously it wouldn't have been...?
Regardless, here's a screenshot of my iPhone Japanese dictionary app, Weblio, and Jim Breen, you'll find similar example sentences elsewhere online:
WWWJDIC: Example Display
｢愛する｣は英語でどう表現する？【単語】love...【例文】They are in love...【その他の表現】be fond of... - 1000万語以上収録！英訳・英文・英単語の使い分けならWeblio英和・和英辞書
You may note that, for clarity's sake, some of these sentences have added modifiers, like 愛し合ってる to specify mutual love, and 真に愛する to specify true love, and あなただけを愛し続ける to specify a unique, forever love... almost as if 愛してる doesn't convey all those things by itself, or something.
(Jim Breen's sentences database is in wide use, and explained here. Weblio has additional examples from various sources, like professional translations from English into Japanese of various works (for example, Twilight, lol). Don't mistake anything I'm saying here from claiming that you, as a non-native speaker, wouldn't startle a Japanese friend, or indeed romantic partner, by using 愛してる out of the blue; just understand that it's not a magic spell and doesn't convey some telepathic knowledge on Kallen's part about Lelouch's feelings, good grief.)
Torn between trying for the, like, sixth time now to explain to one of you folks that my objection to this particular kiss being called a "farewell kiss" is a semantic issue with the order of operations in the scene, and just being... completely exasperated that this is the hill we have all apparently chosen to die on, when it's almost the least of the problems with the original translation of this Regret Message.
As I have said now, twice, if the original translation had just included the word "When" in the sentence, that tiny fragment of their translation would've been fine. Inaccurate, in my opinion, to the scene, but not blatantly inaccurate to the Japanese, because yes, AS I HAVE REPEATEDLY SAID, 別れのキス by itself could be translated as parting/farewell/goodbye kiss. Or as "breakup kiss", because 別れる also means that sort of separation.
But:
ねえ、ルルーシュ。あの別れのキスの時、
Lelouch, about that parting kiss...
continues to be inaccurate, because it omits multiple words from the Japanese, changing both Kallen's tone and how this part connects to the rest of her sentence.
If for whatever reason you really need the sentence to contain "parting kiss", instead of how I translated it, which was "That last moment we had together, with that kiss...", then I would suggest: Hey, Lelouch, when we shared that parting kiss...
Or something like that.
Now, the original Regret Message translation would still have had half a dozen other problems, like translating イラついている as "plastered with thorns" instead of "being irritated"; like the strange editorializing about 嘘でもいいから and the stranger footnotes about 愛してる and わかってたでしょう？...
...but at least if they'd put a "when" in the right spot, their version wouldn't have confused people into thinking Kallen was talking about two separate instances, when she is clearly, in this Regret Message, talking about a hypothetical version of events where, after she asked him what she was to him and kissed him, Lelouch had said 愛してる — how if he'd done that, Kallen would have done anything for him, including participate in all the awfulness that led up to his public execution, which she would then have to live with, and which Lelouch not saying those words spared her from.
Are we done now, or am I going to get more replies on this post from people trying to get me to """admit""" that 別れのキス could be translated as parting kiss, lol, something I have never actually denied.
@inspectorpoe You're just embarrassing yourself at this point. I'm sorry Blottyparchment lied to you about this message — whether for internet clout or because they didn't think an accurate translation was shippy enough, who can say, but given their other translations were awkward but fine it's unlikely to be an honest error — but that's not actually my fault.
Before I met you, I was really just irritated.
I thought: "I want to change the world[2],"
but though I lashed out, recklessly, I didn't actually believe I would be able to change anything.
When I lost my brother, it was like a heavy door had slammed shut behind me.
I wasn't going to let that go. I'd fight to the bitter end. There'd be no going back, I decided.
And then, someday, I'd die — just like my brother had.
To the end, Kouzuki Kallen would follow no leader, serve no master[3].
Dimly, I'd thought that small, stubborn pride would be the end of me.
But then: like a morning star coming into view, you called for me[4].
Whenever I was doing something for your sake, I felt lighter.
No battle was too difficult.
Whenever you directed us to a battlefield, I came running, wanting to be the first one there[5].
I wanted to become a lion, to rip your enemies apart with my teeth.
To dirty myself with any amount of muck[6], so long as it cleared the way for you.
It's strange, really, if you think about it.
It was supposed to be about loathing — and fighting against — Britannian despotism,
but before I knew it, I had all this personal loyalty to you[7].
Hey, Lelouch.
That last moment we had together, with that kiss…
Well, if you'd said I love you[8] back then, it wouldn't have mattered if it was a lie —
I still would have followed you all the way into your personal hell.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Not very characteristic of you, was it.
Wasn't manipulating people by saying that sort of thing one of your talents…?
Yeah, that was so uncharacteristically… gentle.[9]
Is that what you were trying to say, when you told me to live on…?
Even though that sort of gentleness isn't at all why I fell for you[10], heh[11].
Translation notes below the cut. Original Japanese text for you to check yourself transcribed from the above image available at my Dreamwidth link.
[1] This is the title of the first ending theme; other regret messages similarly take their titles from theme songs. This was released as part of an Original Soundtrack CD, after all.
[2] 現実=reality, to be more literal.
[3] 支配者たちに従わなかった = serve/follow/obey no masters/leaders/rulers. IMHO this use of たち makes perfect sense in Japanese, but "serve no masters" sounds somewhat grammatically awkward. Importantly, given what Kallen is about to talk about, I think she's speaking somewhat ironically about how she'd made this small vow to herself, but was about to wind up following/serving/etc Zero.
[4] The verb, 誘う, means to invite or to call for or to take someone along (and also to tempt/lure/entice/seduce); in this case, I think Kallen is referring both literally and metaphorically to Lelouch suddenly calling her on the radio in Stage 2 and guiding her to victory.
[5] Sudden volitional form on this and the next three lines, indicating (in this context) Kallen's strong intention to do [whatever]. The switch here to present-tense isn't literal, but rather a common device in Japanese writing to add a sense of emphasis and immediacy, sort of like when an English sentence begins with "Suddenly…!"
[6] Given the "title", likely a bit of a reference to the lyric 混濁の純潔この身は汚れても / Even if my purity is sullied and this self is dirtied.
[7] だもの is a sentence ending that indicates a reason in a tone of protest, such as 14歳だものね = "You're fourteen," where the speaker is probably pointing out that the person they're talking to is too young (to stay out late, or whatever). In this case, the はずなのに + んだもの is definitely a complaint. She should have been focused on the larger war, but she wound up more focused on her personal loyalty to "Lelouch, ugh" — sort of a sentiment. (Though, I'm sure, affectionate now.)
[8] Strong, dramatic phrasing here, because such strong dramatic phrasing would have swept Kallen off her feet and convinced her, as she elucidates, to follow him anywhere — even if it meant throwing away her morals and working for what she thought, at the time, was a mad tyrant. (Claims I've seen about this line, that Kallen wouldn't have even imagined Lelouch saying it hypothetically if she hadn't been completely sure he loved her — are extremely weird and based on nothing at all, lol.)
[9] Again, the present-tense here adding emphasis.
[10] 好きになった=to come to care about, to learn to like, to fall in love with. This phrase is used platonically as well as romantically (you can, for example, talk about developing a taste for beer this way). Kallen almost certainly means it romantically, of course, given all the givens — but she's not necessarily talking about deep love; this wording could very easily be a crush.
[11] This and "Well" and a couple of other little flourishes have been added to the English in an attempt to convey the very casual tone of Kallen's entire message, which is full to the brim with ね: like she's talking casually, albeit in a heartfelt way, to a friend (or perhaps a boyfriend! if you want to interpret it that way!) — rather than writing a dramatic letter.
None of this means Lelouch didn't or couldn't have had feelings for Kallen, only that she didn't think he did when she kissed him; I would think that was the clear point of the scene, how her eyes were full of emotion afterwards and his eyes were still and unmoved. The fact that he cared about her (to whatever extent) is precisely why he didn't kiss her back in that moment, and tried to make her think he didn't care about her. This is what she refers to as "his gentleness": that he was carefully nonresponsive, rather than kissing her back or telling her he loved her, to spare her direct participation in the Zero Requeim.
別れのキス could mean parting kiss, but ねえ、ルルーシュ。あの別れのキスのとき is still not "Lelouch, about that parting kiss," because のとき changes the meaning. It's ambiguous as to whether あの別れの is modifying キス or とき, and regardless, the kiss was at most something that happened at around the same time as the parting, and...... not a goodbye kiss. For the reasons above, as well as the fact that there was a long pause after the kiss, where Kallen tried to gauge Lelouch's feelings for her, before she said goodbye and walked away from him. Two separate events. If she'd thought Lelouch returned her feelings, she wouldn't have said goodbye and walked away, ergo it was not, nor had it been intended to be, a goodbye kiss. Which doesn't detract from the romance of the scene, just from the romance of the kiss...
The "Word of God" to which I referred was indeed Koshimizu quoting Taniguchi to the other actors in a commentary track, rather than Taniguchi saying it directly himself, and it was about Kallen's reasons for kissing Lelouch rather than Lelouch's feelings... it was his attempt to explain to a young voice actor what her character's motivation was, after she expressed surprise that Kallen would kiss Lelouch at all. (Taniguchi is also now 0/2 here in terms of "actresses correctly intuiting that their characters were supposed to be harboring expressly romantic feelings for Lelouch", which is kind of funny to me personally!)
Also lbr, Taniguchi would hate his words being used this way, he's repeatedly shied away from directly answering this sort of question because, as he's said, he knows that his word carries a lot of weight, no matter how often he tries to tell people that their own interpretation is equally valid... so I guess if you want it to be a goodbye kiss, even despite everything above and how Kallen didn't know she was going to say goodbye until after the kiss was over, go for it? I guess??
愛してる is more dramatic than 好きだ and that is about the extent of the differences (and no, Code Geass isn't the only anime where siblings or other blood relatives have exchanged 愛してる's, and it can be used platonically by parents about their children, etc). None of which means that the imaginary 愛してる in this poem would have been platonic? Obviously it wouldn't have been...?
Regardless, here's a screenshot of my iPhone Japanese dictionary app, Weblio, and Jim Breen, you'll find similar example sentences elsewhere online:
WWWJDIC: Example Display
｢愛する｣は英語でどう表現する？【単語】love...【例文】They are in love...【その他の表現】be fond of... - 1000万語以上収録！英訳・英文・英単語の使い分けならWeblio英和・和英辞書
You may note that, for clarity's sake, some of these sentences have added modifiers, like 愛し合ってる to specify mutual love, and 真に愛する to specify true love, and あなただけを愛し続ける to specify a unique, forever love... almost as if 愛してる doesn't convey all those things by itself, or something.
(Jim Breen's sentences database is in wide use, and explained here. Weblio has additional examples from various sources, like professional translations from English into Japanese of various works (for example, Twilight, lol). Don't mistake anything I'm saying here from claiming that you, as a non-native speaker, wouldn't startle a Japanese friend, or indeed romantic partner, by using 愛してる out of the blue; just understand that it's not a magic spell and doesn't convey some telepathic knowledge on Kallen's part about Lelouch's feelings, good grief.)
Torn between trying for the, like, sixth time now to explain to one of you folks that my objection to this particular kiss being called a "farewell kiss" is a semantic issue with the order of operations in the scene, and just being... completely exasperated that this is the hill we have all apparently chosen to die on, when it's almost the least of the problems with the original translation of this Regret Message.
As I have said now, twice, if the original translation had just included the word "When" in the sentence, that tiny fragment of their translation would've been fine. Inaccurate, in my opinion, to the scene, but not blatantly inaccurate to the Japanese, because yes, AS I HAVE REPEATEDLY SAID, 別れのキス by itself could be translated as parting/farewell/goodbye kiss. Or as "breakup kiss", because 別れる also means that sort of separation.
But:
ねえ、ルルーシュ。あの別れのキスの時、
Lelouch, about that parting kiss...
continues to be inaccurate, because it omits multiple words from the Japanese, changing both Kallen's tone and how this part connects to the rest of her sentence.
If for whatever reason you really need the sentence to contain "parting kiss", instead of how I translated it, which was "That last moment we had together, with that kiss...", then I would suggest: Hey, Lelouch, when we shared that parting kiss...
Or something like that.
Now, the original Regret Message translation would still have had half a dozen other problems, like translating イラついている as "plastered with thorns" instead of "being irritated"; like the strange editorializing about 嘘でもいいから and the stranger footnotes about 愛してる and わかってたでしょう？...
...but at least if they'd put a "when" in the right spot, their version wouldn't have confused people into thinking Kallen was talking about two separate instances, when she is clearly, in this Regret Message, talking about a hypothetical version of events where, after she asked him what she was to him and kissed him, Lelouch had said 愛してる — how if he'd done that, Kallen would have done anything for him, including participate in all the awfulness that led up to his public execution, which she would then have to live with, and which Lelouch not saying those words spared her from.
Are we done now, or am I going to get more replies on this post from people trying to get me to """admit""" that 別れのキス could be translated as parting kiss, lol, something I have never actually denied.
