(Untitled)

[oyceter]

I feel like I have not been writing anything substantial of late in my LJ and that I'm not contributing to general discussion and whatnot.

Ergo, suddenly I have decided that what everyone really needs is a primer on the Japanese language!

This is most likely inspired by having to puzzle through Saiyuki Gaiden vol. 2 in Japanese just to figure

Comments

[rachelmanija]

The kanji for "monkey," usually pronounced "saru," will be printed with "Goku" in katakana so that visually you know that the author is equating "Goku" with "monkey" even though it sounds like "Goku" (one of the reasons why I like the graphic novel medium).

Ahh, that is so cool! And I never would have noticed because I don't know that kanji. Although just with my very pathetic knowledge of Japanese I often catch cool stuff in Japanese manga that makes me regret not really being able to read them in the original-- there's so much stuff that you lose just by losing the ability to see kanji. Like, I just noticed this the other day, but doesn't Konzen use the kanji for gold? Which is so cool, because his hair is gold like the sun and that is a motif, and it's actually in his name!

Or like reading Nana, the "Hachi" thing is also a pun, I assume, because "Nana" can mean seven and "Hachi" can mean eight, although that one probably does not depend on knowing kanji, since it looks like Nana is spelled in katakana.

[oyceter]

Ooo yeah, I loved that thing with Konzen and gold! I totally didn't note any of this in my Gaiden write-up, I could do another post later or something if it's itneresting.

I don't actually know if Minekura specifically did "monkey" pronounced "Goku," but she did something very similar, and I totally cracked up.

I love the hachi thing with Nana and just how superstitious Nana Komatsu is about her name.

[rilina]

The kanji for gold is basically the only Chinese character that I know--it's part of my Korean name--so I was very amused when I was looking at the Gaiden tankoubons and put 2 and 2 together. :)