Bungaku Shoujo

[donquintox]

I just finished reading it. They were awesome. Please translate more! The manga is moving painfully slow, and if it keeps on moving at it's current rate, it will take at least 8 years to finish.

[Ruquion]

So I bought all 8 books in Chinese and read them in less than a week.
Then I was bored and decided to translate a page or two of the third book with my horrendous Chinese, and the result was horrible... To say the least...

Spoiler! :

This letter is a warning to you.
Please hurry and escape!
Every time you shake my heart using that hand which is filled with sweet poison, I would feel so agitated that it's hard to contain myself. The impulse to destroy everything that's inside my body, I'm afraid that it can't be suppressed much longer.
I want to cut you apart; I desire it so much that my whole body trembles. Whether it is day or night, what appears underneath my eyelids is always you.
I want to chop into tiny pieces those hate-filled eyes of yours, which coldly watch my fair face, and also that haughty throat. I want to cut off your ears, your nose, gouge out your eyeballs. My heart is crying, yearning to carve an innumerable number of crosses on your chest, letting the warm blood spray over your entire body.
Hurry and escape!
Sooner or later I’m going to cut you apart.

Prologue: The flashback that replaces my self-introduction ---- At that time I was a fool who was in love
She is so pure, so beautiful that people cannot look at her directly…
Although there are some lame playwrights that will praise the women they admire like that, but when I was in junior high I was also like that, deeply stuck in the swamp of love.
When I woke up, the first thing I thought of was Miu’s face. I remembered those dark brown eyes, plump lips, and also her tea-colored hair that was tied into a ponytail.
Miu always had a mischievous gaze, while she jokingly stared at my face.
-- Good morning, Konoha.
-- Good morning, Miu.
Every morning I would always say hello to my imagined Miu. When Miu squints her eyes and smiles at me, my heart would thump delightedly, so I would always excitedly rush to wash my face, longing to be at school even a second earlier to see the real Miu.
What type of expression will Miu have when she smiles at me today? What kind of tone would she use to speak to me with? How far has Miu’s story progressed? Ah, I really want to see Miu, I really want to see her sooner. I want to listen to Miu’s voice, I want to see Miu’s smile.
I could not restrain myself until I get to school, so I waited for Miu under the wutong tree along the way to school. When Miu approached with her swinging ponytail in the brilliant dawn, I would pretend I just passed by and run to her.
“Good morning! Miu!”
During class, my head was filled with thoughts of Miu. When Miu switched to the seat behind me, I don’t know how many times I looked back in a day, when I looked at her bangs that stick to her forehead and her drooping eyelashes, I cannot prevent my heart from beating faster; When Miu switched to the seat diagonally in front of me, I would have stared at her slender neck and her beautiful side that's like a budding flower, I wouldn’t get bored of gazing at her even if I were to do so for an entire day.
Miu would often spread out a transparent blue file, and write a story on the loose-leaf paper.
The world under Miu’s pen was like a dream…
Those beautiful words were as bright as light, and were so lively that it seemed as though they were dancing
When these stories were read by Miu, they would become even more beautiful, even more radiant, and caused me to become increasingly fascinated.
-- Heh, this is a special privilege. I would only let Konoha watch!
Every word that Miu spoke to me, was as sweet as sugar.
At that time I was really a fool who was in love, all day long I would appear with a complacent, broad smile, I was an incurable dreamer.
Of course I believed that Miu also felt the same way I did, I was convinced that our destinies were tied together; I never had even a shred of doubt.
Even if we rose to senior high, even if we were admitted to university, or even when we became part of society, Miu would definitely be by my side writing stories, often calling my name with a mischievous smile! Not only that, I believed that someday Miu will become a real author, and everyone would know Miu’s talent and value.

But in the 3rd year of junior high, I used the pen name Asakura Miu, making a grand debut as a 14 year old masked genius bishoujo author, and therefore lost Miu.

And now, I am a high school sophomore.
I became an ordinary high school student, going to school normally every day, going to the literature club room after school, helping a weird, abnormal senpai write ‘snacks’.

I'm not planning to contribute since I have exams and uni apps up, so I won't register. =x

[ShadowZeroHeart]

苞待放 flower waiting to blossom. Sometimes used to describe girls.

Not sure which volume that is from, but i am currently at past vol 6, waiting to start 7 and 8, but it always makes me feel too emo, so i must wait for a good time to start...

[Darklor]

If it from one of the later volumes you can post it in the wiki too without regret...

[TheGiftedMonkey]

I finished the first volume of this with mixed emotions, which I enjoyed. I tip my hat at this series.

[Ruquion]

It isn't really that much later, it's only from volume 3.
Since I would probably stop till the end of January (After my mid-terms) and even after that, it'd probably still be on indefinite hiatus (Since AP and L5 piano exams are around April, and afterwords I'd need to focus on finals, then universities, etc.).
So I won't want to get in the way of the current translator.
Well, I would post it up here every time I finish a chapter and if I ever get close to finishing the volume, I'd post it in the wiki

Edited Prologue - 30/12. Made it slightly less awkward... And fixed the 含苞待放 thanks to ShadowZeroHeart...
Chapter 1 progress - Slooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

[Kresnik]

Currently, I'm trying to translate volume 2. I somewhat finished translating the prologue and progressing through chapter 1.

But before continuing any further I feel must ask whether anyone else is working on it, so as to not wasting time from working on a same section, or invoking wrath from the one already working on it.

If anyone is already working on it, I'll move on through the other volume. Translating 309 pages is not an easy work after all.

[Darklor]

Maybe you should ask Thelastguardian, since he was the sole translator till now?

[swiftstrike]

Love this book; hoping the movie adaptation will be as good aha.

[thelastguardian]

But before continuing any further I feel must ask whether anyone else is working on it, so as to not wasting time from working on a same section, or invoking wrath from the one already working on it.

If anyone is already working on it, I'll move on through the other volume. Translating 309 pages is not an easy work after all.

I am not working on this series right now. I thought about starting volume 2, but I figure that one volume is enough to advertise this series. I have now moved on to translating other series.

In any case, feel free to jump in. Although I must say that don't pressure yourself too much. If translation stops being fun, then you should consider taking a rest.
(Which was why it took me over a year to translate the first volume)

I just saw Kresnik's edit on the registration page and I have some suggestions for the title of the 2nd volume.

You might want to modify the title from 'hungry' to words like 'famish','improvished', or use a compound clause. (I haven't come up with anything good as well. You will probably do better than me )

While hungry is correct, the 渇くpart suggests that something impoverished the ghost. Put it another way, the ghost hunger is lacking something metaphysical (from the story, love from its beloved). The word hungry is more literal than the author implies, I would imagine...

Also, ghost sounds a bit funny, but that's just me.

(This reminds me of the debate for the official Jap-Chn translation. The translator actually went on a Chinese forum and argued with people how to translate the titles for volume 1 and 2.)

Merged the posts. - TGM

[Kresnik]

Thanks for the suggestion.

Actually, I too feel uncomfortable using the words 'hungry' or 'thirst', since I don't think the author really mean about it. The only thing I can do is to keep on translating until the end, hoping I will find the proper meaning for it.

'Ghost' is kind of funny, yes. Just like the author used 'Pierrot' as volume 1 alias, yet the full title is using 'Clown'; maybe 'Ghost' is meant as volume 2 alias too, while the full title might better off using 'Apparition', 'Phantom', or something I had yet to find.

Honestly, this is the first time I read this story and I'm translating chapter by chapter, so if a clue shows itself in the subsequent chapters, then I will try to make proper revision to the former chapters.

I only work on this only if I can find some free time during my work hours, and I think this is a good challenge and lesson to train my Japanese too. Not only the words, but the composition of the sentences needs quite a bit of thinking too, since the writing method the author use is not complying with English sentences, made everything just plain weird and jumbled. So I took the lots of liberty to recompose the sentences in order to make things straight.

If you guys found something wrong regarding my translation, feel free to give suggestions here or better, the discussion page at the wiki.

[Katon-Fuuton]

This is a great book. Though unfortunately the first volume is the only one completed. I would very much like to read more.

I think there's a movie or something based on Bungaku Shoujo.

Anyway good work, wish the best of luck and I'll try to help out as well as an anonymous editor.

[thelastguardian]

This is a great book. Though unfortunately the first volume is the only one completed. I would very much like to read more.

I think there's a movie or something based on Bungaku Shoujo.

Anyway good work, wish the best of luck and I'll try to help out as well as an anonymous editor.

Hello, I don't know when you read the first volume, but just now when I was going through the books on B-T, I found that someone at some point deleted a section (the climax of the story too, no less) of volume 1. Since the deletion happened a while ago, I am a bit curious as to whether you have noticed it...

[Kresnik]

Hmm, that sounds really nasty.
Can't we ask that those patrolling editors start to register themselves for a project, and lock the editing from anyone else?
Since I don't really like the idea that someone I don't know is messing around with the translation, or even to risk that an irresponsible person might delete something, as you just mentioned before.
I know that the wiki got history and able to revert to the previous version, but to know that our writings is in responsible good hands is better than the hands of some false-named anonymous.

[thelastguardian]

I know that the wiki got history and able to revert to the previous version, but to know that our writings is in responsible good hands is better than the hands of some false-named anonymous.

Since the purpose of a wiki is for multiple people to collaborate on the same article, it may do more harm than good if we forbid edits.

It defeats the purpose of having a wiki in the first place.

But I do have a funny feeling in my stomach whenever I was reminded that some poor sob online read an incomplete version of my favorite novels...

Anyway, keep on paroling. And people, be careful when you edit.