What prompted them? Hmmm... I was thinking about the panel I linked to before about the piercing, and I thought of how it'd be to juxtapose it against e.g. panels of little sad Soubi having his name written, and then I thought of this entire project. So I basically invented(?) the concept of a manga remix that highlights one thread, no pun intended, in a story.
Also, another thing; that's not at all the translation of that last panel we initially read in the Tokyopop release. We went looking for that panel and were kind of "aslfjldsk that severely changes the meaning". Soubi-muse wants to either find the raws, or go to Sanseido Books when we have the car and get the original volume so we can do our best to translate it ourselves.
Oh, translators, I can't expect you to know all the peripheral fanonesque details, but maybe with a character as sensitive to words as Soubi is, it pays to be literal? *facepalm*
*nodnod* Yes, please. The fan translation is currently all I know, so if you guys are up to that, t'would be awesome.
Literal? Maybe. I'm not sure that would convey the evanescent, almost-poetry feel of what he says.
Re your other response: The thread being - Soubi's being given to one sacrifice juxtaposed with the act of having to give himself to another? (On Seimei's orders, obviously, but ... I'm not sure I'm interpreting the sequence right.)
This really makes the point of Soubi's story hit home. Capsule-summarising it like that really draws out the recurring theme that, while never exactly subtle in the actual story, still has a tendency to be lessened or brushed off by some.
Wanting to give everything away, but being forced to divide. It's rather frustrating how fandom focuses so much on arguing the rightness or wrongness of his desire to give everything away; it's kind of like reading a story about a monk who wants to become an ascetic but keeps having all these complications thrown in his path, and the fandom only ever focusing on the question of whether it's good to be an ascetic or not, or a story about an adventurer who has trials to overcome whose fandom only wants to talk about whether people should become adventurers at all. The story is not about whether it's good to get there; the story is about someone who suffers because they're trying to get there and keep being thwarted.
(I might go as far, in my less charitable moments, to say that if you don't like the fundamental concept of monkhood, you shouldn't read stories about monks and then complain when they uncritically portray the desire for monkhood; and if you don't like stories about the desire to be bound to another, you shouldn't read Loveless and then complain when it gives you that. I guess not everyone knows what it's about from the beginning, but what's frustrating is when people who don't like that particular facet of the story try to argue that it's "really" about something else that isn't actually portrayed. Loveless is certainly not set up as a unanimous criticism of the idea of fated bonds, though I suppose the anime doesn't help the perception that it is.)
Ah, see. This is where a lot of 'GTFO of my fandom' comes from - the sense that you understand what the story's really about and other people annoyingly don't. You can read Loveless through a thousand other perspectives, and still get something valuable out of it. (Which is, in a sense, the problem: if it were boring to people who interpret it in a radically different way, you'd never find yourself arguing with them, because they would have moved on.)
I do know, though, that it can be really frustrating to have very few people with whom you can share what this story means to you.
This is true. Hence "in my less charitable moments", and I wouldn't say it to anyone's face (or at least, I don't intend to; I believe that the only people reading this are ones who tend to agree with me, but it's true that any random internetter could stumble across it and be upset, and perhaps I should have disclaimered that rant more). I do understand the temptation to go "rrgh, GTFO of my fandom", and I don't believe it's a terrible thing to actually express that irrational frustration, as long as you're doing it within likeminded company and not in a way meant to actually reach those people, I guess.
In reality, I've no desire to drive even the most vapidly squeeing fangirls or the harshest sociological critics from the fandom. But I think we all feel irritated that we get in each other's way sometimes.
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Oh, translators, I can't expect you to know all the peripheral fanonesque details, but maybe with a character as sensitive to words as Soubi is, it pays to be literal? *facepalm*
Reply
Literal? Maybe. I'm not sure that would convey the evanescent, almost-poetry feel of what he says.
Re your other response: The thread being - Soubi's being given to one sacrifice juxtaposed with the act of having to give himself to another? (On Seimei's orders, obviously, but ... I'm not sure I'm interpreting the sequence right.)
Reply
This really makes the point of Soubi's story hit home. Capsule-summarising it like that really draws out the recurring theme that, while never exactly subtle in the actual story, still has a tendency to be lessened or brushed off by some.
Wanting to give everything away, but being forced to divide. It's rather frustrating how fandom focuses so much on arguing the rightness or wrongness of his desire to give everything away; it's kind of like reading a story about a monk who wants to become an ascetic but keeps having all these complications thrown in his path, and the fandom only ever focusing on the question of whether it's good to be an ascetic or not, or a story about an adventurer who has trials to overcome whose fandom only wants to talk about whether people should become adventurers at all. The story is not about whether it's good to get there; the story is about someone who suffers because they're trying to get there and keep being thwarted.
Reply
Reply
I do know, though, that it can be really frustrating to have very few people with whom you can share what this story means to you.
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In reality, I've no desire to drive even the most vapidly squeeing fangirls or the harshest sociological critics from the fandom. But I think we all feel irritated that we get in each other's way sometimes.
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