THREE KINGDOMS OF BADASS

[tongari]

Hegemons always resent heaven, because only hell awaits us at the end of our path. - Guo Jia to Cao Cao
The Ravages of Time ((火鳳燎原) or as I like to call it, THREE KINGDOMS OF BADASS, is a Hong Kong comic based on the Romance of Three Kingdoms. It is full of (hundreds of) characters (spanning multiple, sprawling storylines) who can beat up entire

Comments

[tongari]

I am not in the proper mood for Guo Jia to die okay ;_;

Well honestly it just seems like one of RoT's tricks to up the suspense in an otherwise boring battle. Am pretty sure GJ's death is going to be very, very remarkable, and there's just not been enough build-up recently for that. Also as I've complained before there really needs to be more GJ-CC interaction to explain why his death upset Cao Cao so much..

Ahaha wait is this about Meng. I've actually seen reviews on forums by people who go like, "So I'm very straight and totally don't understand why Huo likes Meng even though he KNOWS Meng is a guy.. but.. it's still really very touching"

But my issue with that is I think of Meng as a girl really. And so does everyone else, to the extent that I wonder if Meng thinks of himself as a girl orz

Ahhhh you are so so lucky! ;_; I really wish someone would license an English version, and that they'd be as accurate as I know Merc strives to be. For some reason we only get the original books which use traditional characters, so I can't even foist them upon my Chinese-speaking friends (we use simplified characters).

[equivalent_t]

Ah, good to hear that. At least CM tends to build up GJ's plots quite a fair bit in advance before he does anything (JX, on the other hand...), so I guess I should expect him to live through the battle.

The forums I frequent are still in denial about Meng physically being a guy, possibly due to our translation using a rather ambiguous wording in the initial scene where Meng pondered his 'disability'. They all think of him as a girl, even after the whole three volumes of ponderance, so maybe her desire to be allowed a romance like a girl worked in the end? XD That, and we're still weirded out by Gender Issues in our media. I do think Meng sees himself as a girl, though, in the transgender way, so I'm not sure what to think of it. In my head, I want to keep it that way, keep her as a guy who identifies as a girl, but I also get the vibe that canon wants to present her as a girl who happens to be born with a penis. IDK. Both are valid interpretations of transgenderism, so it's possibly just because I prefer/identify with the former....? /splitting hairs

Our translation is really, really lovely. It's not just accurate, it's actually poetic, and the translator hangs out in the forum and discusses RoTK issues and history with us and clarifies points in his scripts when it's not clear what he meant. (He can occasionally be too poetic with the sentence structure plays.) It's so obviously a labor of love and we're so, so lucky to have it. Sorry I can't help fangirling Shouldn't there be a Taiwanese edition or something that uses the simplified script, though?

[tongari]

Haha I think the Chinese fans suffer from the same denial too.. The English translation is pretty clear but you tend to forget this especially when Meng is in disguise and enemies refer to him/her as "that bitch!". And well Meng doesn't seem to mind having to dress up... Also I feel Huo and Meng's relationship is somehow very different from the uh heavenly bromance between Zhou Yu and Sun Ce.

But ultimately I think of Meng as a kickass female assassin because I think that's what s/he would want, orz

I'm pretty sure there should be simplified translations, but they only import the originals for some reason.. From the size of the Chinese book section in Kino, I'm guessing people here do read traditional script, just not my friends? (I am a hopeless case of whitewash orz)

[equivalent_t]

Does any modern adaptation of Wu have Zhou Yu and Sun Ce not in a highly slashable relationship? I can see why because that I love that relationship in general like whoa (epic friendships, the power of it crosses millenia!) but really now.

The Chinese section at my Kino has traditional Chinese, too, but I think that's what most Chinese-enabled people in my country are used to anyway. It'll probably be what I eventually learn, to, so I can at least use some of those hard-earned kanjis.