#5.12.20

I think the best case scenario is shows with titles such that they don’t even need localised - that’s your Dragon Balls or your Narutos or just, a lot of shounen, really. This is good because it puts everyone on the same page, everybody knows what the fuck a Bleach is regardless of language.

There’s also the literal translation route, which is a fuckin ride of its own thanks to light novels and shit. Turning “Mahou Shoujo something” into “Magical Girl something” is always gonna be fair enough, likewise for like, Boku no Hero Academia and Yakusoku no Neverland to My Hero Academia and The Promised Neverland respectively. I think this is fine if it’s something simple just because like, I mean it makes sense. Us dumb foreigners don’t know Japanese and translating an easy title for us that perfectly retains the original meaning is gonna be fine. Even something that’s changing the entire title rather than one or two words - like Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso into Your lie in April, that’s fine, makes sense. 

But like I said, light novels. Now we need to localise Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo, or Itai no wa Iya nano de Bougyoryoku ni Kyokufuri Shitai to Omoimasu, or Watashi, Nouryoku wa Heikinchi de tte Itta yo ne. Wow, fuckin mouthfuls, right? Yeah no way anyone in the English sphere is calling them that. Fortunately neither do the Japanese sphere - all those shows have little abbreviated titles they go by. Konosuba. Bofuri. Noukin. And I think the first two of those shows have well localised titles. Because they just do the literal translation route, but preface it with the abbreviated title. So now everybody in any language knows what Konosuba is and we’re all calling it the same thing. Noukin’s dog shit because the localised title ditches the Noukin entirely so we’re all calling it different shit. Worthless, why would you do that?

The other way you’ll see shows localised is just like, kinda changing the meaning of the title while still trying to retain the premise of the series in some way. I’ll admit I’ve definitely seen this the least. Only real thing I’ve got is “Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen”. MAL lists a translation for this as something like “Kaguya Wants to be Confessed To: The Geniuses' War of Love and Brains”, but the real localised title is just “Kaguya-sama: Love is War”. The Kaguya-sama part is retained either way so that’s kept across languages, but otherwise they both just go for their own thing, that also both happen to fit the show. There are definitely examples that are more extreme than this, I just can’t really think of any.

Gochiusa has the best dialogue of any cute girl show

It also has the absolute cutest girls ever

Ahhhhhhhhh she got one! Yes!

Anyway Niji episode 10 was fucking utterly delightful. And it’s not really an episode I have a lot to say about since it mostly is just training camp slice of life stuff, including fun cooking shit, fun running shit that turns into a game of tag, nice pool stuff where everyone has cute swimsuits, just a whole bunch of pleasantries between the cast. And I mean, I like basically all of these characters, they have really great chemistry, it’s nice seeing a Love Live cast that feels so united after Sunshine just, didn’t really have that, and it’s quite ironic that it’s the group comprised of solo idols that have that unity going for them. I was a big fan.

In terms of actual plot progression, there are only a few real takeaways here. After a brief exchange with Setsuna, Yu sort of realises that what she loves the absolute most is school idols, and so she wants to put on some sort of uh, maybe a festival. That school idols can perform in. Maybe a School Idol Festival. Yeah. And the different personalities of Niji make her think that all these school idols performing can be different too, and so many people love other school idols, that her idea for the festival is to ignore what schools people actually come from and shit and just have fun loving the idols herself. It’s all really sweet and cute and it’s got that typical Love Live ambition and passion to it, I’m a really big fan, and it’s great seeing Yu have plot relevance again in particular.

The other big thing, and something I’m frankly really worried by, is uh

No! No! I’m tired of jealousy arcs in Love Live! And this one is founded on a fucking misunderstanding too - Setsuna literally trips and the only reason it happens is so Ayumu can see this and be worried!

Now granted, Yu’s very ambitious talks of school idols as a whole and how happy she is about her and Ayumu’s circle expanding so much is also part of the problem for Ayumu. But like, man Love Live jealousy arcs keep happening and I can just never bring myself to truly care.

And like, look, I get it. Ayumu started something with her best friend and now that friend wants way more out of that thing,  she wants way more people involved than just herself and Ayumu. Ayumu doesn’t have to be okay with that - it’s not unrealistic for her to be jealous here. But these jealousy arcs in Love Live just always feel so miserable and just serve to inject the final stretch of the show with melodrama.

At least in SIFAS, Ayumu’s jealousy arc comes from Yu basically ignoring her and the members of the club completely while overworking herself. This one’s just happening for the sake of happening.

Ultimately though, this one thing takes up very little of the episode’s screentime, and it is otherwise just amazingly enjoyable Love Live fun. And I mean, we’re yet to see where this jealousy arc will go - how it will be handled. Maybe we’ve got something really great in store. I can appreciate the arc from the perspective of it giving Ayumu more characterisation - she’s not really done anything since Kasumi’s episode and her own song was part of the first episode, where we were concerned with introducing the rest of the world to us as well. Maybe this’ll be Ayumu’s big break. We’ll see.