question about Hitomi no Ounowa/Dear Green

[kaigou]

Could someone tell me what the two main characters' full names are? The first time I read the story, I was probably reading fast enough to just gloss some of the confusion. Rereading, I'm realizing just how lost I am at some points, because either the names are changing or dialogue is referring to characters not appearing in the scene. I can't tell

Comments

[yhibiki]

Hmm, Yajima's first name was always Yukari? Which releases are you reading? I've got volume 1 done by Andante-Bliss, and volume 2 by Obsession.

Otoumi's first name is... either Kou or Hiroshi? Andante said one thing, Obsession said another. Probably one of them was going by Chinese scans, so they didn't know which pronunciation to go with.

(... This is why I wish people would always use the original language source :X )

As for nuances... I can't tell you, because there's a lot of manga where the lovers (male or female) call each other by their last names. First-name basis is definitely more intimate, but it really depends on the character?

[kaigou]

I went back and checked and I don't have any notation of which scanlation group did which chapter -- in fact, I think I may have downloaded it by chapter, snagging what I could from where I could. And since I tend to strip the intro/scangroup pages (when it's 2008, I figure I don't need the "happy xmas 2003!" anymore) so... I have no idea. I do know the Midori/Yukari confusion actually occurs in the same chapter, at least once -- which is strange. But if it's Yukari, then I shall mentally insert 'Yukari' from now on when reading

[kurokagami]

Here's a scan from v2, http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?rndgfymwom2 - the names listed weren't replaced by the scanlator - they were there originally so those are the correct romanizations (That is, Yajima Yukari and Otoumi Kou).

You're right though, Yajima doesn't ever use Otoumi's first name... but I guess that's kind of in his character. I suppose he finds it weird to switch over after using Otoumi's last name for so long.

[luzzz777]

Japanese Kanji characters can be confusing because one character can be read in multiple ways and can have multiply meanings. Hence the confusion. The character used for Yajima's first name,緑, can be read in multiple ways in Japanese. The most common meaning of Yajima's first name is "green", and hence the scanlators probably made a mistake and assumed it would translate to "Midori". However, a lesser known way of reading the character of Yajima's first name is "Yukari".

My guess is their Japanese names must have been romanised in a later issue of the raw manga or raw magazine scans and the scanlators corrected Yajima's name. The scanlators did not replace the names - it was only an honest mistake. When I read the raws first, I also thought Yajima's first name was Midori :p

[kaigou]

I had not doubt it was an honest mistake -- I do that myself, since I can't always parse which are nouns and which are proper-names, when I'm reading Chinese. I'll spend easily (at least) the first three or four chapters just baffled, before it all comes together. Heh.

I wasn't aware Yukari/Midori are-- what would that be? the character-form of a homonym? -- but there's an early scene when Otoumi is thinking of Yukari's family issues, at the same time he's watching Yukari talk to a coworker. He says, 'Did Midori tell her that?' and I immediately wondered if Midori was a coworker/friend of Yukari's, or maybe his ex-girlfriend. (I know Midori is also often used as a girl's name, too, so...) Which had me reading more into it, and then I realized on this reading that maybe that was a misread on my part... yup, it was.

Thanks for clearing it up!

[hinotori]

...I cannot believe I only noticed the pun with the title JUST NOW. *headdesks*

Dear "Green", huh?

Also, O HAI. (^_~)

[naruo_713]

haha, I've always wondered about the odd title "dear green". So it's a pun.