Editing Hikaru ga Chikyuu ni Itakoro:Translator's Afterword (section)

====Volume 1 – Aoi====

Hikaru’s fiancee, commonly known as the ignored woman in her original story. The age difference between Aoi and Hikaru here is...only about a quarter of the original story, but Aoi is still basically estranged from her fiance, even when he is dead.

The first thing I thought about when I started on this series was to wonder, why start with Aoi? If Aoi was not Hikaru’s true beloved, why did Hikaru not choose his most beloved in the first place? Naturally, by now, you should have known that Hikaru has quite the Oedipus Complex, but when I first started this series, Asagao was yet to be released, and it took me until the next volume to realize that there are more issues, and this was the beginning of Hikaru’s flaws as a character.

In an action story, the protagonist typically starts from nothing and goes on to be much more powerful. In a harem story, the protagonist typically starts from nothing and goes on to be the lead man. Welcome to this role, Koremitsu.

When you hear of people mistaken for delinquents, you think of guys like Kodaka from Haganai, Ryuji from ToraDora!. Koremitsu goes one step further by not having a single positive interaction with anyone else prior to this story. Thus, the theme of this first story, I feel, is not simply about a First Date, but also the First Friendship, a theme that both Koremitsu and Hikaru shared as you can see from their side stories. This meant that their relationship started off with a blank slate, and Aoi just so happened to be the one thing linking them at first, especially for Koremitsu, who was shunned by pretty much everyone before the story even began. This, I feel, is what makes the progress Koremitsu gets all the more remarkable. Typically for guys, the way to make friends is typically to do the same things, like playing online games, sports, any form of similar interests. I do find it amusing that both Koremitsu and Hikaru became friends through wooing girls.

Many of you who have read the English translated manga may be wondering why there hasn’t been any update since chapter 5, where Honoka’s revealed to be the Purple Princess. I do apologize for this part. There are 15 chapters altogether, and it covers the entire volume of Aoi, though some details may be altered accordingly.

Back to the concept of the First Date, I do find it vexing that Hikaru basically made Koremitsu pay for almost the entire date, especially when he is the rich guy and Koremitsu...is only doing okay, to say the least. If Koremitsu had to go on a first date by himself, I wonder what would he have done. He clearly is not the charmer Hikaru is, does not have the eloquence, and does not have any tangibles that would have wooed anyone’s heart.

Yet Koremitsu fulfilled the tasks required without a complaint thereafter. This, I feels, reflects more of the personality Koremitsu has. Yes, he has a scary face (in that universe at least), yes, he has practically no social interaction, but deep inside, he is still an immature boy trying to act tough and react accordingly to the surroundings, and more importantly, he is a kind-hearted straightforward kind of person whose devotedness to a single cause allows him to see things others do not often see. As we see in chapter 5, he is the one who made Hikaru change his mind, who spurred Hikaru on to make amends with Aoi. This is something else I feel separate Hikaru and Koremitsu; while the former may be the fool and the latter the serious guy, it is Koremitsu who plays the role of an optimist, and Hikaru who played the role of a cynic.

Of course, what I mentioned before also does apply to Aoi. When we first saw her, she was...pretty much the spotlight stealer in a bad way. The sheltered princess really could not have forgiven Hikaru for everything he did before this, and to be honest, who can blame her? Of course, the Kübler-Ross model kicks in, and though we have yet to see her go through all of these in-story, one had to wonder what Aoi was thinking in her mind, not eating much, venting her frustrations on Hikaru and later Koremitsu. In a sense, I shudder to imagine what would have happened if Hikaru’s ghost never lingered on Earth.

In chapter 4, Hikaru mentioned about Proust’s book, titled: “In the Shadow of Young Girls in Bloom”. Now, if anyone has read this book, he or she will find this book to be akin to whatever Hikaru went through, yet in his quest to find his one true love, he could never find the flower that could satiate him. Hikaru mentioned that he never managed to read the book, but my guess is that at that point, he was at a desperation point, and this book would have reminded him of the state he was in at that point of time.

The volume started a little slow, and with quite some cliches to boot. When I first read this volume, I could not get myself mentally involved until Asai’s confrontation with Koremitsu, which really was the thing I think that challenged Koremitsu to seek better inter-personal relationships. It did leave me wanting for more, and I do find that it is a good prologue to start with.