Talk:Suzumiya Haruhi:Volume1 Chapter6

Birthmark

Hmmm ... I kind of like the more mature and less shy Asahina. And ZOMG she smexed Kyon?! o__O

Some notes on the first section

I'm not skilled in English enough to edit the text itself, so I write down here differences or something I noticed comparing the original novel with the translation. (including two-bite characters)

The first sentence

As with yesterday, today I found yet another letter inside my shoe locker.

その懸念事項は封筒の形をして昨日に引き続き俺の下駄箱に入っていた。

Later, the third (?) paragraph

There, on a piece of paper with smilies symbols all over it, were written the following words.

I will be waiting for you in the club room during lunch break.

Mikuru-chan

印刷された少女キャラのイラストが微笑む便箋の真ん中に、

『昼休み、部室で待ってます みくる』

The fifth or sixth paragraph

I never want to go through such life-threatening situations again.

ほいさと出かけて行って、また生命の危機に直面するのは御免こうむりたい。

-59.143.134.204 01:46, 29 April 2006 (PDT)

Notes on the second section

Differences I noticed comparing the novel and translation. Some of them are very subtle.

After the fourth session, I was surrounded by Taniguchi, staring at me with meaningful eyes;...

四時限が終わるや俺は、休み時間の間から意味深な視線を送ってくる谷口に話しかけられたり一緒に弁当食べようと国木田が近寄ったり職員室に行って朝倉の引っ越し先を調べようとかハルヒが言い出す前に、弁当も持たずに教室から脱出した。部室まで早歩き。 (Kyon wasn't surrounded by Taniguchi or others)

The third paragraph

In three minutes, I arrived at the club room door. I knocked first.

"Please come in."

三分とかからず、俺は文芸部室の前に立つ。とりあえずノック。

「あ、はーい」

-59.143.134.204 02:04, 29 April 2006 (PDT) Next,

It was Asahina's voice, there was no doubt about it. Alright, I could relax and go in!

確かに朝比奈さんの声だった。間違いない。俺が朝比奈さんの声を聞き間違えるわけがない。どうやら本物だ。安心して、入る。 ("I cannot misunderstand her voice.")

She wore a white blouse and a black mini-skirt,...

白いブラウスと黒のミニタイトスカートをはいている髪の長いシルエット。 (A silouhette with long hair in a white blouse and...)

Next paragraph,

But why did she resemble Asahina so much?

しかしそれでもなお、彼女は朝比奈さんとウリ二つだった。何もかもが。

Later,

She looked surprised for a while, then smiled and winked her eyes, shaking her shoulders.

その人は可笑しそうに目を細めて肩を震わせた。 (she is not surprised in the original text)

Two paragraphs later,

Looking at the beauty standing ahead of me, I realized how beautiful she'd grown.

朝比奈さんが大人になったらこんな感じの美人になるだろうなというそのまんまな美人がここにいた。 (The beauty standing ahead of me was exactly the one that I would assume Asahina would be when she is grown up.)

-59.143.134.204 02:30, 29 April 2006 (PDT)

Though I was kinda forced into seeing her change when she dressed as a bunny girl a while ago,...

そんな際どい部分まで見ることが出来たのは、バニーガールのコスプレをしていた時と、不可抗力で着替えを覗いてしまった時くらいだが、 (Kyon had two kinds of situations he could have seen the birthmark)

While I was thinking the above,

俺がその旨を伝えると、 (When I told it to her,)

...and she blushed furiously.

それから急激に赤くなった。 (suddenly)

Right now I can believe anything.

今の俺はたいていのことは信じてしまえるような性格を獲得したので

"Yes, the me from the past......right now, she's sitting with her classmates having lunch in the classroom."

「はい。過去の……わたしから見れば過去のわたしは、現在教室でクラスメイトたちとお弁当中です」

"Does that Asahina know you're here?"

"No, after all, she is my past."

「そっちの朝比奈さんはあなたが来ていることを……」

「知りません。実際知りませんでしたし。だってそれ、わたしの過去だもの」(Asahina in the present time doesn't know another herself is here because the Asahina from the further future doesn't remember another herself was there then)

Several lines later,

I looked at the slightly taller Asahina.

俺は今や背丈のそう変わらない朝比奈さんを見つめた。 (Here the original expression is a bit ambiguous: does this mean the grown-up Asahina is nearly as tall as Kyon?)

No......it's more serious than that.

それではないんです。もっと……そうですね、 (The older Mikuru does not explicitly say Kyon will face a more serious situation)

A few lines later,

I used to wear this often.

よくこんなの着れたなあ、わたし。 ("How could I wear something like this?" or "I can't believe I could wear such a thing!" or the like?)

Three lines later,

Some people are just born to have costumes worn on them.

何を着ても似合う人というのはいるものだ。試しに訊いてみる。 (plus the last sentence.)

She said with a weak sigh.

鈴虫のため息のような声。 (suzumushi...a cricket?)

And after Asahina turned and shook her hair out, then gave a seductive smile, "No comment~." the section ends (two lines of blank in the original novel).

-59.143.134.204 03:12, 29 April 2006 (PDT)

I just wanted to say thanks (however belated -- though I believe in doing meaningless gestures if they're the right gestures.) for the valuable information you contributed. The only reason (as far as I can tell) nobody's acted upon it is probably because like me, they don't know enough Japanese to really be able to respond effectively. Hopefully someone more qualified than me can confirm these discrepancies.

I would like to note one thing I found amusing, (only knowing katakana, hiragana, and a pitiful smattering of kanji.) which is the "Mi-ni Ta-i-to Su-ka-a-to" (tight miniskirt; the tightness being omitted from the current translation.) -- It's good to see that the author has his priorities in the right place. And also that Kyoto Animation had theirs in the right place too, as they faithfully animated that aspect of his vision.

Your English is fine, by the way. And besides, the important thing is that it was easy to understand the meaning you were trying to get across.

--The naming game 16:39, 9 June 2006 (PDT)

On Haruhi's mental state

The original text was "they create a see-saw conflict within her heart". I changed that to "they create cognitive dissonance", which is the formal psychological description for the phenomenon.

That's the only non-grammar/structure edit I made from 20% to 70%.

Eleutheria 09:39, 30 April 2006 (PDT)

If it was anyone else saying those lines, I'd think "cognitive dissonance" was a hopelessly overblown phrase for a high school student to use. But seeing as it is Koizumi speaking, I think that phrase strikes exactly the right note.

--Freak Of Nature 10:20, 30 April 2006 (PDT)

• Interesting, I admit this does sound better, although I can forsee problems that people will have trouble understanding the meaning, but i have to conceed that we shouldn't treat the readers that they are not intelligent to understand these scientific terms, and if not will look to discover what it means themselves.

But I do feel that if people do have complaints, then please voice them here, as i realise that it will be unfair to force people sought out meanings of words when we can easily provide some simple additional notes.

Onizuka-gto 10:21, 30 April 2006 (PDT)

PDF?

Is there any chance that we may see Haruhi in PDF format? It would be a lot easier to print... (of course, I fully intend to also buy the novels when they arrive in English (and they will...).

---

Unlikely. This is a translation project by fans, to be taken down when copyright is exercised, not a e-book distribution thing. You can, of course, make your own pdf files with Adobe.

Eleutheria 15:35, 2 May 2006 (PDT)

ESP?

I've noticed in the text a few places (including at least once in this chapter) where Koizumi replies to Kyon's unvoiced thoughts. Is that really what is happening, or are there just some accidentally missing quotation marks? I know his commentary sometimes "covers up" real dialog, but in conversations with Koizumi is seems to happen more than usual.

The case I noticed just now is at the very end of Chapter 6:

The car stopped, and as I was about to step out, he spoke again,

"Please pay attention to Suzumiya-san's actions. Her supposed mentally stable state has now begun to have signs of rapid change. It's been quite a while since something like today has happened."

Even if I did observe, she'd still become like that, isn't it so? [Note: no quotation marks on this line]

"Frankly, I don't know either. But I find it to be a good idea to leave everything to you, since some of my companions tend to think things way too complicatedly."

Perhaps this is just a very subtle way of showing that Koizumi has some "ESP" powers that Kyon has not noticed yet. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't an artifact introduced in the translation and typing process.

--BlckKnght 21:47, 3 May 2006 (PDT)

Sometimes the missing quotations deal with Kyon's thoughts, sometimes they're his dialogue. The author lets the reader determine it by context. I think this may have been for two reasons: 1) To get the reader closer to Kyon, and 2) to allow the author to have Kyon say something, then have a "Or that was what I was going to say..." line afterwards.

Since it's repeated often enough to constitute a style, and the confusion it causes doesn't change between Japanese and English, it should probably be translated the way it is. You get used to it after a few chapters.

--Kumarei 12:46, 8 May 2006 (EST)

Snow White?

--Yankervitch 14:47, 6 June 2006 (PDT) Although Snow White may be referenced in the earlier editions- if Mikuru's talking about how to get out of closed space with Haruhi, the fairytale she should really be referencing is Sleeping Beauty. Snow White is awakened in the Grimm's fairy tale version by the servants of the prince, who stumble while carrying the glass coffin, which dislodges the poisoned apple from her throat. In the interest of making it flow better... could that be changed to Sleeping Beauty in the translation? Or at least have a footnote explaining the author's original error? -- (yankervitch)

The author initially said 白雪姫, a quick Google reveals Mikuru certainly said Snow White. Technically we can consider the poisoned apple as the closed space that Haruhi got herself trapped in with Kyon, and Kyon kissing Haruhi later in chapter 7 is pretty much symbolic of dislodging the "poisoned apple", or rather, the closed space. Does that make sense?

I should also mention that in the anime, Snow White is also mentioned by the adult Asahina Mikuru in the episode 10 raw. If Kyoto Animation has also decided this will be the case, it means Nagaru-san definitely did mean Snow White and not Sleeping Beauty. I'll have to consider this case closed.

Lastly I should mention that Nagato said "sleeping beauty" in pure english in chapter 7. Last I checked she didn't discuss things with the future Mikuru, let alone the present-day one. If Nagato truly got the idea from the future Mikuru, she would have mentioned it in the epilogue, especially since she's one to go into analytical detail. To not do so only shows she has an ego, which of course she doesn't to begin with. -- velocity7, 12:44 PM EDT, June 6 2006

--Yankervitch 14:47, 6 June 2006 (PDT) Hang on a sec, then. So both fairytales are mentioned in the novel? Bizarre. Talk about badly mixed metaphores, then. In the Grimm's Sleeping Beauty, everyone is asleep and time is frozen throughout the kingdom (down to the point where a cook about to hit a boy in the kitchen falls asleep right before hitting the boy, and as soon as he wakes up, he follows through on the slap as if he hadn't been asleep for that long). That fits (in my own interpretation) with the closed space appearing to the point where only Haruhi and Kyon are present more than the poisoned apple.

I wonder what other analysis could be made of Nagato and Mikuru referencing different Western fairytales.

You might be looking a little too deep into this... in the Disney version, both females were awakened by a kiss, hence the "common thing" between the Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.

--GDsMDDLFNGR 18:37, 6 June 2006 (PDT)

childhood girlfriends

A discrepancy I noted (Someone else can probably catch some others if they go over the episode again) between a certain fansub of episode 10 (corresponding to this chapter) and the current translation.

In the anime, when Haruhi complains about not having eaten,

• Kyon teases her by saying something like "Why don't you say that again, except like a childhood friend who's trying to hide her embarrassment?" --
• and she calls him an idiot for insinuating that.

In the current translation,

• he simply thinks to himself that she looks like one of those childhood friends.
• And she calls him an idiot because he's just standing there.

Could someone confirm which is the actual interaction? I really want it to be the anime version, but there have been examples where the anime has spiced up dialogue/action compared with the novels.

--The naming game 16:51, 9 June 2006 (PDT)

I am not sure if I got this right, but in the anime version, Haruhi had said 「アホなこと言ってないで」. In the novel, she said 「アホなことほざいてないで」

From what I can tell, in the novel Haruhi had made use of the verb ほざく (to sputter, grumble, mumble) and in the anime she had said 言って (to say). Maybe a slight change on the dialogue itself but the meaning is more or less the same. That should justify a change that is similar to the anime, but is more rude and maybe in some dialect of sorts.

On that note, I must imagine Aya Hirano had some serious bloopers re: trying to say the novel line, and thus during the recording they decided to change it to 言って.

--velocity7, 20:26 EDT, 9 Jun 2006

While the sentence with "itte" certainly seems easier to say than with "mazaite", it doesn't seem quite in tongue twister territory either way... but from what I know of recording, if something can go wrong, it will, and anything that can reduce the number of takes needed, is helpful, otherwise things start sounding tired.

(on the other hand, you did hint that it's a kind of dialect type thing, so perhaps it's hard to get it to sound natural unless you're "hip" to that dialect.)

(On another note, have you heard the audio track where Ayanami Rei's voice actress speaks REALLY fast? Now that's what I call talking.)

Er, one more thing. You as much as confirmed it indirectly, but -- since Haruhi says essentially "don't say stupid things" in both versions, that means that Kyon was actually teasing her in the novel version too?

(I wouldn't feel comfortable making the change unless I was reasonably sure.)

--The naming game 19:05, 9 June 2006 (PDT)

Yes.

--velocity7, 23:01 EDT, 9 Jun 2006