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| O K ! |
Let’s skip me apologizing for the obnoxious delay on this review and just jump right into the delightful newest volume of Seeeraaaa Muuuun.
I absolutely love this cover. It exemplifies the sweet, sparkly charm and cheer that makes Sailor Moon so appealing to millions of fans of all ages. You wouldn’t dare call this Chibi Moon “the Scrappy Doo of Sailor Moon,” would you? Scrappy Doo never looked this cute. By the way, get your fill of those sexy boots, because the only other full-body cover picture we’ll get is on volume 11.
As far as what comes after the cover, I’m pretty happy. I didn’t find any typos, misspellings, or grammatical errors. The translation is accurate and, by and large, more natural-sounding. Reading Tokyopop and Kodansha side by side, I saw many sloppy Tokyopop errors that were, by the grace of the Ginzuishou, not repeated in Kodansha, including 5(!!) instances where dialog is attributed to the wrong person.
Other general comments before we dive into the nitty-gritty:
Mugen – So, I really don’t care if “mugen” is left as-is or if it’s translated as “infinity”, but I like consistency, and saying Mugen Academy is located in the Infinity District isn’t consistent. I don’t
understand why the academy is the only place in a whole island of places named Infinity Whatever that uses Mugen instead.
Ten'ô, Kaiô, Meiô – These romanizations are perfectly acceptable, but seem overly complicated to me, especially in the case of Haruka’s name, which has been invaded by an apostrophe. What’s wrong with Tenou? It’s nice and easy and doesn’t require me to find that stupid O with a hat.
Haruka being referred to as “she” before she is officially revealed to be female - Usagi and everyone else refer to Haruka as a "he" because they believe she's a man. In Tokyopop, no one starts referring to her as a "she" until she reveals herself as Sailor Uranus and starts dressing as a woman. In Kodansha, however, Usagi uses the feminine pronoun before she's certain of Haruka's gender. Haruka doesn't make an appearance in womanly garb until later in the act, and her identity as Sailor Uranus doesn't come to light until the next act, so why would Usagi suddenly use "she" here?
Unlike English, Japanese doesn't require a subject in every sentence, and it uses the 3rd person pronouns for he 彼 (kare) and she 彼女 (kanojo) sparingly. It's easy to talk about someone in Japanese without revealing their gender, whereas in English, you have no choice unless you want to sound a bit weird and use they and their for a singular subject. Thus, the translators must decide which pronouns to insert. "He" is the most logical option based on what the characters know at this point in the story.
One the other hand, Usagi is experiencing some serious confusion about Haruka's identity right around now, and just had a pretty kinky dream about him / her, so I could accept that as an argument for why she might say "she" at this very moment. Furthermore, to quote Haruka herself: "Man? Woman? Does it really matter that much?"
I've decided to start commenting more on the story itself, rather than just the differences in translation and adaptation. Those comments will appear at the end of this post. I wish I could make a separate jump cut for them, but that doesn't seem to be possible. I considered making a separate post for story comments, but decided against it. If anyone has any feedback on how I should format everything, I'd love to hear it.
