kaizokuou-ni-naru

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

OH, good note here, thank you!! it may indeed be ゆく/yuku rather than りく/riku, it's a little hard to tell without being able to see the other half of the first character. if it's yuku, the preceding word is a lot more likely to be some sort of verb form; yuku is a version of the verb 'to go' (more commonly seen as iku), which is often appended to the ~te form of other verbs to emphasize either a physical movement or a process over time.

that's probably where they got the "...ING WORLD" from in the official. so i could see it possibly be something like 沈んでゆく世界/shizundeyuku sekai for "sinking world."

Hello! With the recent revelation in Chapter 1113 by Vegapunk, I was wondering if you think this is what Cobra was saying in the speech bubble that gets blocked in chapter 1085? Something like “sinking world”?

Are there any clues for this in the original Japanese?

oh, good question!! so, here's what this section looks like in japanese. the first phrase appears to be 歴史の本文を守りなさい/ponegurifu wo mamorinasai, "protect the poneglyphs." and then there's the big obscured bit, of course, and then we can see the end of the sentence, 世界に夜明けの旗をかかげ/sekai ni yoake no hata wo kakage ("bear/raise the flag of dawn against the [...] world").

what's missing is indeed some sort of phrase preceding/describing the word 'world'. i know that in the english translation they did this as "...ING WORLD". we can see that it probably ends with the sounds ～りく/~riku, but what it might be beyond that is hard to say. there's a few situations where a word might end with ku in japanese; it could be a verb with a ku dictionary ending (like tsuku, 'to be attached') or it could be an adverb version of an adjective (such as atarashiku, 'newly', or ookiku, 'in a big way').

i can't really think of an obvious way to say 'sinking' that would fit what we have here- at least, neither 沈む/shizumu nor 沈んでいる/shizundeiru fits. but i do think it's definitely plausible for the sinking world to be what cobra is describing here, one way or another.

#jonny answers #post addition #ch 1113 #ch 1085 #arc: egghead island #opspoilers #one piece #japanese

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

hi! Hope you're having a good day. Did you have fun with chapter 1113?

i did!!! and i am VERY excited for the next chapter!! however there was no luffy in chapter 1113 and i would like to see him again please. its his birthday.

#jonny answers #not japanese #one piece #arc: egghead island #ch 1113

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! With the recent revelation in Chapter 1113 by Vegapunk, I was wondering if you think this is what Cobra was saying in the speech bubble that gets blocked in chapter 1085? Something like “sinking world”?

Are there any clues for this in the original Japanese?

oh, good question!! so, here's what this section looks like in japanese. the first phrase appears to be 歴史の本文を守りなさい/ponegurifu wo mamorinasai, "protect the poneglyphs." and then there's the big obscured bit, of course, and then we can see the end of the sentence, 世界に夜明けの旗をかかげ/sekai ni yoake no hata wo kakage ("bear/raise the flag of dawn against the [...] world").

what's missing is indeed some sort of phrase preceding/describing the word 'world'. i know that in the english translation they did this as "...ING WORLD". we can see that it probably ends with the sounds ～りく/~riku, but what it might be beyond that is hard to say. there's a few situations where a word might end with ku in japanese; it could be a verb with a ku dictionary ending (like tsuku, 'to be attached') or it could be an adverb version of an adjective (such as atarashiku, 'newly', or ookiku, 'in a big way').

i can't really think of an obvious way to say 'sinking' that would fit what we have here- at least, neither 沈む/shizumu nor 沈んでいる/shizundeiru fits. but i do think it's definitely plausible for the sinking world to be what cobra is describing here, one way or another.

#one piece #jonny answers #japanese #cobra #arc: egghead island #opspoilers #ch 1113 #ch 1085

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

How did shigure soma and ayame soma say the lines "The night is long, I won't let you sleep tonight, Gure-san. I'm honored to be able to share your dreams tonight, A-ya. Nice!" In fruit basket.

good question! i have never read nor watched fruits basket.

this is a reminder that i will only answer translation questions related to one piece or to the japanese language more broadly, not to other specific series. that's not what this blog is for.

#jonny answers #not one piece #not japanese

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! I have a question about Imu - I’m sorry if you answered it before. I’ve seen a lot of discussion about how “Imu” backwards is “Umi” and how that is significant. However, I’ve also seen people say that “Imu” backwards is actually “Mui” based on the way their name is spelled in Japanese.

Can you shed some light on this? What do you think?

hmm, so, yes, the latter is correct. 'imu' backwards is only umi ('ocean') if you are romanizing the name into the english alphabet first, and 'imu' is not even necessarily the correct romanization for this name.

the name 'imu' is written in japanese as イム, because the japanese language is constructed with sound chunks called kana that represent syllable sounds. so イ is i, and ム is mu. these would each be considered a single 'letter' as english speakers understand it. so if you reversed them you would indeed get ムイ/mui.

this is why this name is sometimes rendered as 'im' and sometimes as 'imu'. 'm' as a single distinct letter doesn't like, exist in japanese, and mu is its best approximation, so based on the information we have it's not entirely clear what the best way to spell this name in english would even be.

so this does seem a little tenuous to me, but i wouldn't entirely discount the possibility that oda would use the english alphabet to play on the significance of names in ways that only make sense when they're romanized, because he has done it before- for example, エルバフ/erubafu, which is meant to be romanized as 'elbaf,' which is the english word 'fable' backwards.

#jonny answers #imu #one piece #japanese

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Does the Japanese version of the very first SBS (in Vol. 4, right after Chapter 27) mention Usopp's age? I've heard that the Viz version skipped it?

yes! it wasn't requested in the question, which only asks about luffy, zoro, nami, and shanks, (and usopp hadn't yet joined the crew yet), but the last sentence of the answer here is:

ちなみにウソップはルフィと同じ17歳です/chinami ni usoppu wa rufi to onaji 17 sai desu -> "incidentally, usopp is 17 years old, the same as luffy."

#jonny answers #one piece #japanese #sbs #arc: syrup village #ch 27

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

actually re: saturn insulting akainu in the newest chapter, this is also something i was thinking about earlier this arc, when akainu was fighting kuma at mariejois, and as he was attempting to fend off this quite genuine threat, the celestial dragons were just sort of hanging around and whining at him about all the minor inconveniences in their privileged lives.

akainu is the most committed servant of the world government's vision. he questions no orders and has no doubts of the rightness of his cause. he will destroy an entire ship fill of civilians on the off chance that a single scholar may have snuck aboard. and what does it get him?

it gets him the very people he's defending demeaning him because they can't have lobster. there will never be any gratitude for that loyal service he's rendered, because the celestial dragons see it as nothing less than their due. and as we see in the most recent chapter, even the slightest or most unavoidable failure will get him ruthlessly insulted. at the end of the day the celestial dragons see akainu as, like all other people, fundamentally lesser, and therefore unworthy of respect.

this is the system you're slaughtering for, akainu. hope you like it.

#jonny reads op #one piece #not japanese #character meta #akainu #saturn #arc: egghead island #opspoilers #ch 1113 #ch 1092

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! This is a 1113 question! It struck me as kind of interesting that Saturn blames Akainu of all people for Robin escaping Ohara. Like, he was not the man who called for the buster call (Spandine), the admiral whose authority it was under (Sengoku), the man who deserted the marines (Saul), or the vice admiral who actually let her get away (Kuzan). The only thing we see Sakazuki do at Ohara is do seemingly exactly what the elders would have wanted him to do - mercilessly destroy an escaping ship. Why would he be responsible?

Is there any insight as to why this is in the original Japanese? What do you think of this line?

i was wondering about this as well. i think it's really interesting how completely insulting saturn is towards akainu in this line- he refers to him as akainu-me, with -me being a derogatory suffix with an effect sort of like "that damn akainu," and then ぬるい男/nurui otoko, meaning like, 'slow/stupid/useless man.'

i imagine the reason saturn is especially angry at akainu is because the five elders generally seem to approve of him. he was the government's choice for the new fleet admiral implicitly because of his brutality, whereas sengoku wanted aokiji. therefore, one can assume that his failure to kill one eight year old girl was especially disappointing to the five elders, because he's generally an extremely committed and merciless servant of the government. the word that saturn uses here to describe akainu's failure, 取りこぼした/torikoboshita, means something like 'to lose what should have been an easy win.'

#one piece #japanese #jonny answers #saturn #robin #akainu #opspoilers #ch 1113 #arc: egghead island

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

hi quick question about chapter 1113! the official translation of one of vegapunk's lines towards the end of the chapter is "I will not apply the labels of good and evil at all, in fact [...] because I understand too little about him to begin with" when talking about whoever has killed him. do you know if the original specifically used a gendered pronoun in that line?

yes! vegapunk uses the gendered pronoun 彼/kare, 'he', in this line. you can see it's actually emphasized a bit with quotes.

#one piece #japanese #jonny answers #ch 1113 #arc: egghead island #opspoilers #vegapunk

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

In chapter 1113 Sanji gets a kick in against Venus-juro. Right before that, Sanji say smth along the lines "If someone scores points with Bonney, it will be me". TCB translated it like "If someones rescues Bonney it will be me". What exactly is he saying there? Because the official translation sounds..... off....

i knew i was gonna get asked about this line. nah, the official translation is actually closer. so in japanese the verb is モテる/moteru, which is like, a semi-slangy term for being popular or admired, especially by the opposite sex. you might say onna ni moteru about someone the same way you'd say that guy is 'popular with the ladies' in english.

sanji says ボニーちゃんにモテるのはおれだ/bonii-chan ni moteru no wa ore da, so like, "the one who's going to be admired by/popular with bonney-chan is me!" when i read this chapter and was translating it for practice, i did this line as just "bonney-chan's favorite is gonna be me!"

basically, he wants her to think he's cool (and attractive). i see where they got the translation they used in the official, like it makes sense to me, the original term does have a vaguely romantic connotation, but i think the phrase "score points" might give the impression that he's actively trying to get somewhere with her? which is not implied in the original.

(i'll also add, this is clearly supposed to be silly. he shoves past franky to do this and then immediately gets what appears to be all his ribs broken by a giant horse on the next page. i would call this entire sequence fairly standard sanji behavior.)

#also if ur gonna like discourse about this DONT DO IT ON MY POST. PLEASE. I DONT CARE. #one piece #japanese #jonny answers #sanji #bonney #arc: egghead island #ch 1113 #opspoilers

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello! In chapter 589 there's a text box that the English translation translates as:

Later on the page we see the conversation the revolutionaries had when dragon brings Sabo aboard (without the context that's what they're talking about of course), and it makes me wonder what exactly "the night after the ship of the celestial dragon sailed into port at the kingdom of Goa" means. Does it mean the night of the next day (meaning dragon probably had enough time to sail over) or the night of that same day (meaning dragon??? teleported??) (or that Zoro's dojo and Dawn island are a lot closer together then previously assumed??)?

Anyways I was wondering if the original Japanese sheds any light on this?

It's not an important question at all but I've been thinking about it way too much so I figured I'd ask lol. Thank you!

the japanese does clarify that it's the same day! it says 日の夜/hi no yoru, so literally 'the night OF the day (when the celestial dragon sailed into goa).' so yeah, presumably they're just less than a day's sailing apart.

#one piece #jonny answers #japanese #arc: post marineford #ch 589

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

in chapter 1107 (pages 15-16) when Saturn & the Blackbeard captains discuss Teach being “special” does their wording specifically refer to a genetic lineage or something else? also wondering if there's any additional context around Van Augur's claim that they're after “the world”

yes! saturn expresses surprise that devon would defer to anyone, and devon says in explanation that teach is 特別/tokubetsu (special/extraordinary/exceptional).

saturn's response to that is 血筋もな/chisuji mo na, and chisuji does mean literally 'bloodline'- it can also be translated as like 'lineage/descent'. it is indeed a genetic/biological term (so he doesn't appear to be referring to a metaphorical 'lineage'). you can see the kanji for 'blood', 血/chi, is part of the word. the mo means is like 'as well/in addition.' so saturn's response is like "his bloodline (is special/extraordinary), as well."

there's nothing i can add about van augur's line about the world, though; it's quite literally just the one word, 世界/sekai, 'world.'

#jonny answers #one piece #japanese #arc: egghead island #ch 1107 #blackbeard #caterina devon #van augur #saturn #opspoilers

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello. I missed the raws of ch 1113 and I was wondering what were the exact words Vegapunk uses when he declares their world is sinking in the last panel.

I'm curious how literal those words are, and if there's a more metaphorical feeling behind them regarding the decline of their world.

Thank you! ❤️

it seems to be quite straightforward and literal! the line is この世界は海に沈む/kono sekai wa umi ni shizumu. kono sekai = this world; umi ni = in the ocean; shizumu = will sink.

it is interesting to me that the verb shizumu is conjugated here with the simple present/future tense, which means it's saying something that will happen, not something that has already started happening. if you wanted to say "this world is sinking into the ocean," for instance, you'd probably say shizundeiru instead.

#one piece #jonny answers #japanese #arc: egghead island #ch 1113 #opspoilers #one piece spoilers #vegapunk

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hello. I’m an English reader of One Piece, and confidently know *nothing* about the Japanese language (atleast how to read it). I own all 4 box sets that are currently officially available in English. I was wondering, considering your expertise, is the VIZ translation good (in terms of how reliable it is in accuracy)? Does it convey what it needs to? If not, do you think any scans you’ve read are better compared to the official? Curious what you think as a translator. Thanks!

i think that these days the viz translation is basically fine. it conveys what it needs to. often there's little quibbles i have with it, like little differences in how i might personally have phrased things, but i certainly don't think i could do better at translating whole chapters of manga on a week-to-week basis.

my new chapter reading process now that i'm properly caught up again starts with reading the raws in japanese, and then i skim both the unofficial scans from tcb and the official release from viz when they each come out to see what choices they made. doing this, i do see more mistakes in the unofficial scans than in the official viz translation. and that makes sense! the people who do the official viz translation are professionals who are being paid for their work and they have more time to do it.

like, just for one low-stakes recent example i noticed, in chapter 1112, the unofficial scans (left) messed up this panel by attributing both of the lines on the left to vegapunk, when in fact the second one should be spoken by pythagoras (something made clear in japanese by his distinctively polite speech pattern), a mistake which was corrected in the official (right).

and i'm not saying this to insult the scanlators, by any means! it's something i've wanted to get into myself, and they provide a really cool and valuable service largely for free as volunteers. i love scanlators. but if you are wanting the most accurate experience of the current manga as an english-speaker, the official is probably still your best bet.

however, from what i've seen (bearing in mind that my actual experience with the official translation is pretty limited, i mostly only look at it when people ask me questions or i have a specific curiosity) i do think the official translation has a lot more problems in the older arcs, roughly from east blue through, like, skypiea?

i've seen or been asked about a pretty substantial number of mistranslated lines and questionable choices from that stretch of the manga. for just one example, there's this one from drum i posted about a couple months ago, where a line that's quite thematically important to the series as a whole got cut up because of the translation's former unwillingness to use the word 'god' (also very visible and annoying in skypiea).

the anime for those arcs does use, from what i've seen, a better translation than the official manga. however, i personally don't know of any better manga retranslations of the early arcs (it's something i've actually considered trying to attempt myself, if i ever have the time for a project of that scale). if any of you have any to recommend, please let me know!

#jonny answers #one piece #not japanese #long post #arc: egghead island #ch 1112

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hi! You have a great knowledge of Japanese, so I would like to ask a question not related to One Piece. It's about the word わかっている . When is it used in m/a? I know it expresses irritation and impatience. That is, if one character uses it (no matter if they are calm or not) we can assume that they are irritated by their interlocutor, otherwise they would use わかった or わかりました or even わかっています, wouldn't they? I will be grateful, if you find a time to answer.

this is an interesting question!! it mostly comes down to the difference between the simple past tense (~ta form) and the ongoing present tense form (~teiru form). for those who can't tell exactly what's being asked here, the asker is asking about different forms of the verb wakaru (to understand/to know).

わかっている/wakatteiru is the ongoing present tense form of the verb, while わかった/wakatta is the simple past tense. わかっています/wakatteimasu and わかりました/wakarimashita are just the same terms but in polite form instead- there isn't a difference in meaning, just in the level of politeness implied. so to the best of my knowledge, the distinction between wakatta and wakatteiru can be understood roughly as the difference between 'understood' and 'i already knew that.'

wakatta is most often used as a straightforward confirmation that you understand what you've just been told. sort of like the english 'got it.' the simple past tense indicates a singular action rather than something ongoing.

meanwhile, wakatteiru, as the ongoing present tense form, says that i 'have been and still am' doing this thing (in this case, 'knowing/understanding'). so if you say wakatteiru, you're sort of saying that you already knew what you've just been told. i wouldn't say that this necessarily implies irritation or impatience, but it definitely can in a lot of circumstances. at least, that's my understanding!

#jonny answers #not one piece #japanese

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

//ch1112

in York's talk with Mars, she says something that the unofficial translation put as "we don't wanna rack up any more sins. our relationship is already troubled enough." what do you think she's referring to?? what does she say in the original?

[chapter 1112 spoilers!]

so as i understand it, she's basically saying that the actions of the other vegapunks risk endangering her own relationship with the five elder stars.

the word she uses that's translated by the unofficial scans as 'sin' is 罪/tsumi, which can also mean 'crime' (it's one of the central words of enies lobby, which is why a lot of translations of that arc use 'sin' and 'crime' interchangeably) and then the verb is the passive form of 重ねる/kasaneru, meaning 'to pile up.' so the first half of this phrase is basically "if these crimes are allowed to keep piling up..."

and then the second half is あんたらと付き合い辛くなる/antara to tsukiaidzurakunaru. antara to is like 'relating to you (plural)', and then tsukiaidzurakunaru is a way of saying like 'fed up with' or 'enough is enough.' so the full line is like, "if these crimes (by the other vegapunks) are allowed to keep piling up, then you all will get fed up with me."

#one piece #japanese #jonny reads op #opspoilers #raw spoilers #op spoilers #arc: egghead island #ch 1112 #york

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

Hi! One of opbackground's most recent posts made me wonder. In Enel's cover story of ch 470, the description talks about the people living on the moon. I've seen this translated in many different ways and I was wondering if they use the same wording/name here in japanese as for the Lunarians?

oh, this is a really good question! so, it doesn't refer to them as lunarians directly, but it also doesn't refer to them with any other proper name. in the official, judging by the @opbackgrounds post, it looks like they've called them 'mooninites.' in japanese, it just calls them 月の人/tsuki no hito, meaning "people of the moon." which reads as a descriptive term, not necessarily a name. the full phrase translated directly would be like "winged 'people of the moon' who lived in ancient times."

the name of the lunarians is spelled out directly when they're eventually named as ルナーリア族/runaaria-zoku, with 族/zoku meaning 'tribe' or 'clan.'

while we're at it, it may be a coincidence, but i will note that marco's memory of whitebeard's story of the ancient civilization on top of the red line (in the same chapter the lunarians are named) refers to it as 神の国/kami no kuni, 'country of the gods,' which is also a term used to describe skypiea a few times throughout that arc.

#one piece #japanese #jonny answers #arc: thriller bark #ch 470 #arc: skypiea #ch 239 #arc: wano kuni #ch 1023 #enel