歌枕 poem pillow

韮木 / Niragi: 何か / Can I help you? (1)

苣屋 / Chishiya: あなたも心肺停止を体験されたらしいですね / Apparently, your heart stopped as well. (2)

韮木 / Niragi: よく知ってますね / How do you know that? (3)

苣屋 / Chishiya: 俺もだ / It happened to me too. (4)

韮木 / Niragi: 奇遇だな / What a coincidence. (5)

苣屋 / Chishiya: 死にかけたことで、何か変わりました? / Since you almost died, did anything change with you? (6)

韮木 / Niragi: どうかな。まあ、見た目が派手になったくれえだな。そっちは? / I don't know. Well, I guess I look flashier than before. What about you? (7)

苣屋 / Chishiya: 随分とダメな生き方をしてきたから、これからはもう少しマジな生き方ができそうな気がする。そんなところかな / Since I've wasted my life until now, I think I'll be able to live a more useful life from now on. That's about all. (8)

韮木 / Niragi: ろくでもねえ野郎だったのか、お前も / So you were a good-for-nothing jerk too, huh? (9)

苣屋 / Chishiya: まあね / Yeah. (10)

(1) [Lit. Something?] Here we see Niragi initiating a conversation with a stranger using directly the informal speech (known as ため口 tameguchi). It is very uncommon in japanese culture to approach an unknown person without using formal speech, thus this immediately frames his real-world character as someone who's direct and on the defensive. In my opinion, it is better translated with "Need something?", because I'd say it's a bit more aggressive and fits the character portrayal better.

(2) [Lit. Apparently, you happened to experience a cardiopulmonar arrest as well.] The first line coming from real-world Chishiya tells us two very important things about him. The first thing we notice is that he uses very technical, surgical words that definitely come from his medical knowledge: 心肺停止 shinpaiteishi is a complex word, not very much used in informal conversations. I believe that using a simple "your heart stopped" in the target text undermines Chishiya's portrayal as someone who's pretty knowledgeable about medical terms. So what I would do is write directly in the target text "cardiopulmonar arrest". The second thing we notice is the fact that, unlike Niragi, he approaches him using formal speech (known as 丁寧語 teineigo). This kind of talk is the most common and polite way to speak with an unknown person. He even uses the most respectful second-person pronoun, あなた anata, which comes out as quite detached as well.

(3) [Lit. You know that well?] Niragi's line is a direct response to Chishiya's display of medical knowledge. The most curious thing about this line, though, is the fact that Niragi appears to correct himself and use teineigo as well!This seems to be pretty unprecedented for his character, who's previously always been showed as aggressive and as direct as possible. Instead, here he falls in line with his interlocutor's formal speech use and acts polite as well. He's baffled by his vocabulary, sure, but he also replies in an equally respectful way.

(4) [Lit. Me, too.] It's funny, because what we see is a back-and-forth between tameguchi and teineigo: here Chishiya is the one using informal speech. Unfortunately European languages make this type of transition almost impossible to convey, but I think it is curious that after Niragi has adapted to the polite form common between strangers, Chishiya feels that no, perhaps informal speech is what feels more right. It's almost like he seems to acknowledge an unconscious feeling of already knowing that other person in some way.

(5) [Lit. What a fortuitous meeting.] Chishiya's switch seems to have made Niragi subtly more comfortable because he goes back to using tameguchi. Also, while I think "coincidence" is a pretty good translation, it fails to 100% convey the fact that 奇遇 kigū points at the coincidence of meeting someone. It's not simply "what a coincidence we both had a cardiac arrest"; its meaning is more along the lines of "what a coincidence that we both ended up sharing this hospital room". So once again the dialogue implicitly suggests that the two characters have some sort of connection.

(6) [Lit. Since you came close to death, did anything change?] The back-and-forth continues because Chishiya now returns to teineigo. He seems to keep the stranger at arm's length and to feel confused about whether he knows this person or not. Also, Chishiya doesn't ask whether anything changed with Niragi, because what he says is "did anything change at all?". His question is broad, referencing what could a personality trait, a new worldview, or something else entirely.

(7) [Lit. Who knows. Well, my appeareance has probably become more flamboyant. And you?] Some things to notice here as well. First of all, Niragi keeps using tameguchi; his speech pattern is pretty brash, considering the other person is officially a complete stranger who's settled on teineigo. He even uses そっち socchi as a second-person pronoun, which is not aggressive, but definitely feels colloquial. Another word choice I wanted to look at was the term 派手 hade. Now, this made me raise my eyebrows, because according to Weblio's Japanese-to-English dictionary, some of the meanings of this word are "flamboyant", "gay", "showy", "gaudy", "loud". Niragi is essentially comparing himself at the flashy way queer people are known to dress in (especially in Japan, where gay men in particular are still subject to stereotyping as funny and colorful people).

(8) [Lit. Since my way of living has been without purpose until now, I have a feeling that my way of living will be able to be a little more useful from now on. That's about it.] I'll give you three seconds to guess what Chishiya does in this line. Ready? 3, 2, 1... yes, of course he switches to tameguchi again. Once again his instinct must be telling he's got some sort of previous knowledge of this other person, and so he drops teineigo definitely. Moving on, a change that I think is important to apply to the target text is the translation of 気がする ki ga suru. It does not mean "I think" (which is a conscious action we make) and instead conveys the idea of "I have a feeling that", "I feel like" (which portrays a subconscious feeling we can't always explain). Borderland Chishiya had experiences that brought him to a conscious change of heart, but of course Real-life Chishiya doesn't know that, so what he references is a simple sensation he gets.

(9) [Lit. So you too were a worthless asshole.] Tameguchi remains the speech manner through which the conversation is carried. Niragi makes it even more personal because he uses the second-person pronoun お前 omae, which is specifically masculine in use and extremely forward, often used to directly confront the interlocutor. The word 野郎 yarō is one of the few Japanese strong insults and covers a variety of English epithets like "bastard", "son of a bitch", "asshole". Now the nuance may very but I think "jerk" is a little too mild for both the term used and Niragi's usual speech. We also see the use of the adjective ろくでもない rokudemonai, which can mean "good-for-nothing", but also "worthless", "insignificant", "up to no good", "without purpose". Once again, the nuance used here may vary.

(10) [Lit. Well.] Chishiya concludes their conversation with one of the colloquial expressions we see him using during the series, which is non-committal and generic. You could also translate it as "I suppose", "Yeah", "You could say so".

It was very interesting for me to observe how in the space of a few lines the two characters went from using polite speech and respectful pronouns to a way more informal and direct way of speaking, in just a matter of minutes. I also enjoyed seeing Chishiya's medical background making an appeareance in the source text, and his hesitance towards using an informal speech pattern with someone he doesn't remember meeting, but feels like knowing. I think there's a lot here that gets expressed in an implicit manner and in the source text only!