Mahou Shoujo ni Akogarete Episode 5 Discussion

@logopolis



I agree, I also think the manga and anime are two separate things and thus should be treated as such. Which is exactly why my whole point from the beginning was just that 1). Korisu was definitely sexualized for the anime, and that 2). I personally don't like that compared to how it goes in the manga. I'm not saying they're obligated to follow the manga or anything, just simply stating which I prefer.



By this I'm mainly refering to the manga, where compared to all the other magical girls, Korisu is never really involved in any lewd scenes. Compare that to the anime so far, such as her transformation being nude, or her spreading cream/messaging Utenas breasts (both anime-exclusive scenes). Having Korisu being more involved in respect to that weakens the story/character dynamic IMO given her age and the fact she wouldn't really understand things of that nature (not refering to the transformation). While this episode on it's own didn't involve that much with her, it means they could go more into it, making the show worse (for me).

@cardfightereli
But not quite in that way. Horny teenagers being horny teenagers is just that, add magical girls and a few tropes / common kinks and it gets a little weird, sure. But with episode 4, going even younger and having that grade(?) schooler go porn demon king and seemingly kinda sorta in a way, like, almost conflate family stuff and motherly affection with sexual kinks ... that was a whole other level of weird (one that does, for some reason, feel very Japanese, though, I have to admit).

These are "localizers". They mean it they gay way. There's literally no need to make this line read this way unless you're trying to make that canonical.



This isn't some puzzle. The line can be translated, perfectly, word for word, while only losing the exact cultural context surrounding Japanese politeness. You know what the translation is? "I'm not going". There's nothing else to match. She literally said exactly what she means, in exactly the way she meant it, and it can be said in English in exactly the same way. It's only slightly harder than translating "no" from Spanish to English, with about as much meaning being lost.



Then you clearly don't speak Japanese.



As in change them to be gay. The scene is done before the lines are done, so you can't fit the scene for the lines.



The Scene is "about" having their dynamic play out. And it shows that Utena is comfortable expressing herself.

Eh, based on what you suggest, my first choice would probably be "L-Let's not". Lacks the playfulness of "You know I won't go", and seems more of a direct answer to Kiwi's suggestion than "I'm not going". I think the subtext would be less that Utena is comfortable expressing herself, and more that Kiwi won't take no for an answer, not in episode 3, not now, and not later when she suggests Korisu put her and Utena in the dollhouse against Utena's will.

And it would be wrong. The point of the subtitles is to convey the messages the characters, signs, and any other things in the story, are expressing. The point is not for people with little to no knowledge of the language to simply make up what they want the characters to say. I don't understand your pathological need to "fix" the message that's been so clearly conveyed by the character, and by extension, the author, and everyone involved in the creation of the anime. Especially since you clearly lack even a rudimentary understanding of the language itself.

If you try translating the line, and your answer is anything but "I'm not going", do it again until you get that, because it's literally the clearest possible sign that you fucked up the process. And if that's too hard for you, then maybe keep your objectively incorrect opinions to yourself.



Por que no los dos? *cue mariachi band*

I wish Alice's transformation sequence were longer.

Despite the Sayo boob sucking & the doctor play at the end, this episode feel like the tamest the series has had so far.

いけない and いかない have grammatical roles which could be an alternative to Utena not going, as in the polite way to ask someone to do something, (if X isn't done, it won't go"), and as in logic not going. I think you need to be native speaker level to say precisely how that line should be taken with confidence.

"Sexualize" is kind of useless a term from how vague it is and how subjective "sexual" is.


Korisu's transformation to me seemed pretty devoid of any blatant sexual focus. You can tell this easily by comparing her transformation with any of the other girls it looks very different. Undetailed crudely drawn barelly visible nipples that arent even always there and not really having much of any kind of closeup shots of her body just a distant normal magical girl transformation. The other girls there is a lot of focus on their boobs and ass and their nipples are brightly coloured and detailed. I havent read the manga (at least not yet i may check it out) but Utena didn't seem know that was Korisu from her being a little delirious from fever and her having an adult form (or it's a doll?). Or im not sure full extent of her power but she also might have had some control over Utena making her play the role of patient just like how she got Tres Magia to play house which shows she already was being innocently pervy there as is. If you look at the "doctor" where her fingers with the cream on them were they were actually spreading cream on Utena's chest not going for her breasts directly. It's just her palm sort of innocently massaged her breasts as she did that. The human body cant help responding to physical stimuli so Utena didn't really have control over how it felt and there isnt an indication Korisu intended a sexual response. So it was Utena who was a sexual display in that scene rather than Korisu and paired with Utena's ignorance of what was going on at the moment I dont think it interferes with that dynamic at all for anyone that is aware of these things. If you ever played doctor or house as a kid or asked around anonymously what someone did like that when they were a kid youd find someone of Korisu's age and even younger can and many do play that way regardless of if or if not they have a clear sexual intent. It's just a normal part of how sexuality develops over time in people so I see it as a kind of display of contrast of the difference between Korisu and Utena.

See the power of a proper translation? You even picked up on the fact that Utena doesn't care what Kiwi does, so long as it's understood that she's not going, and that she wants her to stop asking. "I'm not going (And that's the only thing that matters. You do what you want, as long as it doesn't involve me.)" The only thing Utena is concerned with is expressing her own unwillingness to go.


You're the problem. The line reads exactly the same way in English and Japanese, with almost no meaning being lost. It's the exact perfect translation available right off the bat, entirely for free. The only reason you see a "problem" is because you don't speak a lick of the language, and you've got a bizarre head canon about how Utena should speak that objectively contradicts her characterization.

We kind of do, since this is a matter of fact, and you're objectively wrong. We may as well be disagreeing on what the answer to 2+2 should be.

No. Not even close. The only time I've seen any manga have garbage like that actually put in by the author is "The Day I Decided to Make My Cheeky Gyaru Sister Understand in My Own Way", where there are characters who "lol" in every. Single. Line. Among other things.

No, this is basic Japanese. If the line confuses you, you skipped out on your second week of classes.

If you don't consider the possibility of it being more advanced Japanese, you stopped after your second week of classes.

Maybe the fact that it's written with kanji does rule out the 'logic' interpretation. But how words can lose their kanji when adopted into a grammatical role is not particularly basic.

I'm a JP>EN translator.



The fact that it's written out in kanji is literally irrelevant. Plenty of words are written out in Hiragana, katakana, and kanji, almost entirely arbitrarily "Baka" can also be written in kanji (馬鹿); that doesn't change anything. The kanji doesn't remove, or add, any level of clarity to the expression, and it can (and usually is) written in hiragana/katakana. The meaning of the phrase hinges on the basic difference between "Can't" and "Won't", and I've known the difference for literal years. I actually remember the exact scene from Macross Frontier that taught me the difference. You probably don't remember that one, though.

This is not advanced, or ambiguous. You only think it is because you don't speak the language.

@HyperlinkBlocked I don't think it's advanced or ambiguous, I think it's non-trivial to tell whether it's advanced or ambiguous because there are multiple possibilities which cannot be trivially ruled out. Maybe they can be non-trivially ruled out, I'm just expressing uncertainty.

@logopolis I'm telling you, with absolute certainty, that the phrase is basic, perfectly clear, and any ambiguity the reader may find in it is a product of his ignorance of basic Japanese. She used the exact least ambiguous words to clearly state that she refuses to go. You can put your uncertainties to rest: I gave you the answer ages ago.

Study up a bit more. I know verb forms aren't always the easiest.

@Takata @HyperlinkBlocked @logopolis you guys are seriously arguing over that line of all things?

a) "L-let's not" is quite inaccurate
b) "You know i won't go" or "i won't go you know" is reasonably accurate because of the "yo" and probably best balances text with tone
c) "I'm not going" is accurate enough to get the point across.
d) "i won't go, okay?" is another very accurate parallel.

if you include slang from other english dialects, you have easier parallels, like "i won't go, ya?", but can't convert the tone due to cultural inequivalence.
a) example has the right tone but the wrong context
c) and d) sound too aggressive in english but when you hear her voice you can mentally correct for that

ikanai (iku for go, nai for negative, not go) yo (seeking or insisting affirmation for statement - with raised pitch for question to which she is promptly ignored)

this isn't complicated, just learn the language.

this is a very minor linguistic discrepancy and can easily not even notice it just by hearing her tone from her voice; there are much bigger fish to fry elsewhere. we shouldn't be starting fires literally everywhere just because of recent upheaval due to some recent egregious misconduct by localizers. focus on where the damage is worst, cuz you can't expect everyone to be perfect.

Her, obviously. She's the one being propositioned, and she's clearly, flatly rejecting the proposal by saying she's not going in response. If she meant something, or someone, else, she'd state the subject. It's not an order, because the verb would end differently. She's sharing information. And it doesn't make sense for her to inform Kiwi that she (Kiwi) isn't going, since Kiwi is very clearly set on going, and Kiwi knows she (Kiwi) is set on going! The final alternative is that Utena is informing Kiwi that she (Kiwi) isn't going because she (Utena) isn't going, and my god, would that be the weirdest, most roundabout message she could possibly have in her head.

It is not. The first one is stating that something is unacceptable in some way, not making a comment on someone, or something's, literal ability to go somewhere. If a story ever used that phrase to comment on that, it would be an extremely non-standard use of language. いけない is, if you'll believe it, much more ambiguous as a word than いかない. Which is yet another reason why the statement is so clear: She chose the one with the fewest variety of meanings.

いかない is the negative form of 行く, which has these meanings: https://jisho.org/search/%E3%81%84%E3%81%8B%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84

In this form, the subject is stating it won't go. Unless you hear otherwise, it's used by people for themselves.

Despite the similarity, いけない and 行けない are actually different things. 行けない is just 行かない, but in that case it's about the literal ability to go, rather than a willingness, or some factual description of the subject's not going in the future.

いけない, on the other hand, seems to be the negative version of いける, which, yes, again, seems like it's some version of 行く (And would need kanji to disambiguate, since 行ける means "I can go"), but it's actually unrelated, and is actually a word that means something is good. Like, if you eat a new dish, and you're pleasantly surprised by the taste, you might say something "いける!”

https://jisho.org/search/%E3%81%84%E3%81%91%E3%82%8B

いけない, as you might have guessed by now, means something is bad, unacceptable, etc.: https://jisho.org/search/%E3%81%84%E3%81%91%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84


But you'll notice that either way, we don't have to go this deep into the rabbit hole, because even if Utena had said this, and we all collectively misheard her, the message would merely change from "I'm not going" to "That's bad", and wouldn't need any additional clarification anyway!

They just tried to make the gay ship canon, and you think this isn't serious damage?

@HyperlinkBlocked And that's just the kind of complexity I was thinking of. (I didn't know where いけない comes from, thanks for that.)

(I thought the whole conversation was about what kind of English "no" to translate that Japanese "no" into, hence all about the subtle differences.)

I'm still of the opinion that "I'm not going" is awkward, and doesn't flow with the conversation. It seems to carry the implication that Kiwi can go to the hotel without Utena, which makes no sense in the context.
I would argue that localization should ideally give the foreign audience the same experience as the native audience, so if a character's line is rude, polite or meek in the original, then it's rude, polite or meek in the target language, of course while saying as close to the same thing as practical. To that end, I get why you object to the original sub line, but while you solve one problem you introduce another. Of course, everyone has their own taste for how raw they want their translation. The best the translator could do is find a widely acceptable median position.
Bottom line, we don't have to agree. We live in a free world, or at least I would like to think I live in a relatively free part of it.

Does the manga also have really garbage localization like "sus" and using the fuck word more times than is probably needed?

@Takata I agree. "i'm not going" is awkward. English speakers know "not now" doesn't actually mean she is agreeing to go later. There is nuance to English just like with Japanese. It fits perfectly fine.

@TimeFliesAway

Dude are you Woke
"dysability" (misspelled) phobic... I don't do political correctness so if my opinion offended you, good, be offended.

The episode showed her mom then showed a grownup woman examining Utena so it implied that it was her mom and didn't explain or make obvious she wasn't. Then the next scene they show her mom come home and offer to buy her a doll so it really implies the girl fantasized about her mom doing that to Utena. IDGAF it's an interpretation how I saw the episode. If they wanted me to see different, then that failure is on the episode not mine
It's barely worth discussing because it was a badly made shitty episode

@SuperAdventure



disability*
Happy?

Literally nothing to do with politics...

But, yes, of course I'm awake. Always funny to see people thinking "being woke" is an offense when you're literally calling yourself blind. Would you walk into a volcano if your political leader told you so? Guess you would.

But hey, imagine you're so ableist, you can't even differentiate between deaf and mute. Truly something.



Nah, it's quite clear. Why would she fantasize about her mom in her own dollhouse? Makes no sense. It's obvious it's a grown up version of herself. You just have to use your brain (or ask your political leader if you can use it ig) and see who has the powers.