Translations – Page 7 – Mutantfrog Travelogue

Harry Potter and the Filler of Big

A couple of years ago the fact that a fake sequel to Harry Potter was illegally published in China made headlines and drew large amounts of attention online. And yet, despite the huge numbers of blogs that linked to the story at the time, nobody had any decent visual evidence, or any details beyond that in the short BBC article I linked to above.

When I went to China for the first time in 2003, one of my main goals was to locate a copy of one of these fake Harry Potter novels. As I was utterly unable to speak Chinese at that time, when I and my travel companion passed a movie theatre showing the film I noted down the Chinese title in the little notebook I carried in my pocket. (哈利波特) so that I could show it to a bookstore clerk in the hope of finding my very own fake Harry Potter novel, nestled alongside the real ones.

After trying a couple of different bookstores, I met with success! There were actually two different fake Harry Potter novels alongside the real four that had already been published at that time. While neither one of them was the famous Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon (see an English translation of a few paragraphs of that novel here), but they were still gloriously, authentically fake, and of course I bought them both.

Here, for your pleasure, are scans of the front and rear cover of the first of my amazing purchases, which for various reasons have not been presented until now. As you can see, the English title is “Harry Potter and the Filler of Big.” The Chinese title is literally “Harry Potter and the Great Funnel,” which goes at least 35% of the way towards explaining the English translation.

Later on I will post some scans of the interior, lovingly illustrated using bad clip-art, and very possibly type-set using dramatically out of date software. I’ll also post some scans of my second fake Harry Potter novel, which according to what one could ironically call the copyright information page, is entitled “Harry Potter and beaker snd burn.” And as a special bonus, some sample art from a Harry Potter dojinshi from Japan.

Goro Miyazaki’s Journal: 1/27/06: Transforming into a Docomo Mushroom

Goro WINS:

I will continue on the topic of bicycles from yesterday.

In the animation industry, for some reason there are many bicycle enthusiasts,
so much so that every year, there is a 160km race from Inagi City, Tokyo, to Asuwa, Nagano Prefecture.
I, too, take part in that.

Inamura-san, “Ged War Journal” Art Director, is another person obsessed with bicycles.
He is the owner of a quite a pair of legs.

Inamura-san is an avid user of an Italian-made helmet from a maker called Brico, and
since it is very cool, once when I tied putting it on as a test,
a “Docomo mushroom” with an evil look in its eye was standing before me in the mirror.
It seems my head was too big compared to the depth of the helmet’s hat body.

Since then, when watching races live on television,
I have tried on several helmets that I thought were cool, but
they are mostly from European makers and none of them fit on my head, or
Even if they fit, I still look like a citizen of the mushroom planet.

For whatever reason, European-made helmets
seemingly can only be donned by small-faced, small-headed people.
Since there’s nothing I can do about it, I wear an helmet with a relatively deep hat body
from American maker Bell.

They say my face does not look much like my father’s,
but at least there is no mistaking that I got the face largeness from my father.

Speaking of which, about 20 years ago, during production of the film, “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,”
my father once suddenly proclaimed, “I’m going to ride a motorcycle!”
He did rush out and buy one,
but he could not find a helmet that fit him at all.

Finally, he crammed an off-type helmet onto his head, but
I clearly remember that his face looked like it was about to overflow from the helmet.

But, I like sashimi!

My translation of a Nikkeinet article.

“I even like sashimi” Taiwan’s KMT party secretary denies being “anti-Japan” to media

“Reports that the KMT walks lockstep with the mainland (China) in their anti-Japan campaign do not reflect my real feelings. I even love sashimi!” On the 10th Ma Ying Jiu (mayor of Taipei), chairman of the KMT[Chinese Nationalist Party], Taiwan’s largest opposition party, assembled Japanese reporters resident in Taipei and issued a denial of the viewpoint that he was himself a believer in anti-Japan ideology.

There are indications that the KMT has been intensifying their anti-Japan tendencies, such as stressing their own role in the Sino/Japanese war. “We criticize even the white terror (of KMT despotic rule) and (China’s) Tainanmen incident from the same basis of human rights and constutituional government. There’s no reason to make an issue out of only Japan,” Chairman Ma Ying Jiu said.

However, “I do not approve of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Yasukuni Shrine visits,” he said, not forgetting that stab in the neck. Ma Ying Jiu is currently considered the favorite to win in Taiwan’s next presidential election.

Doesn’t the “but, I like sashimi defense” have the same ring to it as, “but I have so many black friends” or “but Jews are so funny”? I’m amazed that this is the best that Ma could come up with.

Goro Miyazaki’s Journal: 1/20/06: I saw Mamoru Oshii’s Latest Movie

I have been busy, but apparently Goro-san has been writing a LOT. So I am only going to go after the parts where he talks about the relationship between him and his father. Here we go:

Yesterday I saw a pre-screening of Mamoru Oshii’s latest, “Biographical Vignettes of Dr. Tachigui” at the Ghibli screening room. But before I give my thoughts on that, I’ll tell you an anecdote.

20 years ago, when I was still a high school student, I met Director Mamoru Oshii.
The place was at my grandfather’s cottage in Shinshu (more of a mountain shack than a cottage).
The time was the middle of summer, I remember.
At the time, Oshii-san, in his mid-30s, was the very picture of a rosy-cheeked beautiful (?) youth, and his white running shirt made an impression on me.

While we were at the cottage, Oshii-san and my father would argue for hours on end over their theories of animation.

The previous year or so, Director Hayao Miyazaki’s “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” and Director Mamoru Oshii’s “Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer” were released.
At the time, I preferred Urusei Yatsura 2, and learned later that my opinion had been communicated to Oshii-san.

Anyway, back to what I was talking about.

Maybe because he remembers that, Oshii-san apparently has a unilateral fondness for me, and really wanted me to see “Biographical Vignettes of Dr. Tachigui.”

I wish all the success in the world for Oshii-san.

So my thoughts, briefly:
Once more, on the same theme, I’d like you to make an effort toward entertainment that puts service first.
That is all.

Japanese vs US Blogs

High praise from Curzon at Coming Anarchy:

Educational and entertaining in one healthy dose, [Mutant Frog Travelogue is] probably the best East Asian blog around.

Thanks, I think we’re pretty great too! But that made me wonder — what do other East Asian blogs look like? What about, just for example, the highest ranked Japanese blogs on Technorati?

(Note about Technorati from their About section: “Technorati displays what’s important in the blogosphere — which bloggers are commanding attention, what ideas are rising in prominence, and the speed at which these conversations are taking place.” Hence, these rankings are a measure of what people with blogs are linking to, not the number of page views, influence, revenue, or any other factor (as far as I can tell))

For starters, let’s see what’s out there. Here’s a quick rundown of the top ten blogs in Japan and the US/English-speaking world (for comparison):

Japanese blogs:

1. がんばれ、生協の白石さん！ “Fight on, Shiraishi of the Co-op!”

This is the blog of a Mr. Shiraishi, “very very average” employee of the Co-op (student cooperative/school store) at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology. Shiraishi gained fame for being the writer of responses to comment cards that students would write to him. The comment cards are a well-known phenomenon at Japanese universities as the answer are often posted outside the Co-ops on a bulletin board. He differs from other such Co-op employees in that he actually answers the stupid joke comments that he gets rather than giving them a quiet death in the round file. For some reason this has become majorly popular in Japan, probably because college students throughout the country have wondered just what kind of weirdos answer their comments.

An SAT question

Q: West Palm Beach, Florida is to New York as what place is to Japan?

A: Taiwan.

If that makes no sense to you, then you probably haven’t read this article in Japan’s Asahi Daily.

Taiwan authorities ready longterm visitor visa aimed at Japan’s “baby boomers”

Starting on February 1st, Taiwanese authorities began issuing multi-visas targeted at retired Japanese pensioners. With an eye on the rush of retiring “boomers,” they are aiming to attract long term Japanese visitors thinking that “after retirement, I think I’ll live in Taiwan, where things are cheaper.”

With pensioner Japanese citizens as the target, they will have to produce documents such as proof of pension recieval and proof of a clean criminal record issued by the police department when applying for a visa. With this visa, the greatest period that can be spend in Taiwan at one time is 180 days. Within this period, the visa holder can leave and reenter the country as many times as the like. Their spouse will also be issued a multivisa.

Taiwanese authorities, which are trying to promote an increase in visiting tourists, have noticed an increasing movement of Japanese seniors spending long periods in Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia. Plans are moving forward to construct special “long term visitor condos” in places such as Nanto county, where the climate is warmer.

Sounds like a good deal all around. Japanese retirees will get to live in a nicer climate where prices are lower, and yet the standard of living is not dramatically lower, and the Japanese government has to spend less money on its own expensive domestic healthcare. On the other side, Taiwan’s coffers gets to make up some of the tax shortfall caused by their own aging population, and local service industries get a significant cash infusion.

I should not that a standard Taiwanese visitor visa has an absolute limit of six months, but must be renewed in person every two months at the local police station’s foreigner services office, which I imagine they are rightfully considering would probably be too much of a hassel for elderly people. Of course, a large part of the reason that Taiwan has such strict visa rules is to keep out illegal foreign labor, which from what I’ve seen includes a truly astonishing number of illegal language teachers, in addition to the expected factory and construction workers. Of course, elderly retirees are unlikely to take away jobs from local people, and instead of burdening the local government to pay for more services, they only import wealth.

One key thing remains unclear to me though. With a six month visa, would these residents be elegible to apply for an Alien Residence Certificate (ARC)? If so, that would let them register with Taiwan’s generous national health program, which would be rather counterproductive to the whole scheme.

Bad Japanese to the 4th power times 12

This ultra dorky gaming blog run by some anonymous American nerd has the most hilariously bad Japanese I have ever seen. This is so amazingly ridiculously atrocious that it makes Engrish.com look like Geoffrey Chaucer.

Nintendo は再度上がる! 反抗して準備ができているか。

Nintendo は再度上がる。Nintendo の回転は実施中にある。準備ができているか。考えるものを忘れなさい知っている。賭博の回転のために準備されなさい。液浸の回転! 秘密によってはハリウッドがBroadway に会うところにがある。第12 力の時4 への10 は見るものである。ない実際はspec シートでしかし。 eMagin は真実を保持する。 Nintendo は再度上がる。反抗して準備ができているか。
Seriousgamer007 はRedmond に内部にある。私がであるかだれ秘密は残る。信じなさい回転は来ている!

SeriousGamer007 は実質及びNintendo の内部にである!

The grammar is honestly so bad that I think the only way to properly convey the effect is to run it through Babelfish.

Nintendo rises for the second time! Opposing, does preparation do? Nintendo rises for the second time. As for the revolution of Nintendo it is in the midst of executing. Does preparation do? Forget those which you think you have known. Prepare for turning the gambling. Revolution of immersion! At the point where Hollywood meets to Broadway depending upon secret bitterly it is. At the time of 12th power 10 to 4 is something which is seen. It is not, but really with the spec seat. EMagin keeps truth. Nintendo rises for the second time. Opposing, does preparation do? As for Seriousgamer007 in Redmond it is inside. Am I or, some secret remains. Believes revolution has come! SeriousGamer007 is inside substance and Nintendo!

He strings together grammatical structures that make no sense together-for ‘immersion’ he uses the word that means literally ‘to immerse something in liquid.’ Gambling? I have no idea. He seems to be trying to say something like “ten to the fourth power times twelve” but instead of actually using the mathematical terms, he just uses the literal words ‘times’ and ‘power,’ enabling the ちんぷんかんぶん that you see before you.

Now, I’m not just making fun of him for writing bad Japanese. Everyone writes stuff just as bad as this in language class. No, it’s not just that it’s bad, but that he clearly thinks he’s so goddamn cool for being enough of an uber-dork to write idiotic nonsense about Japanese videogames in the holy language itself. Even written in English it would have been such fanboyish blather that, after reading it, you might wonder for a second if merely by reading this blog you might be somehow rendering invalid all of the maturity you have developed since the sixth grade. Just look at the kind of blather that he actually DOES write in English.

Thank you for following this blog. This blog has become enormously popular. Gamers from countries all over the world have found this blog. This blog leads the war on gaming dominance for Nintendo.

This blog is at the forefront of that battle. The Nintendo blog to change everything.

This is clearly the guy in your Japanese 101 class who embodies all the stereotypes. His very existence casts a dark cloud over all of us who study Japanese and happen to also enjoy pop culture like video games or manga instead of a strict diet of noh, geisha and zen. In response, I would like to borrow the words of yesterday’s SomethingAwful post.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to the Japanese. The people from the United States and Canada that end up living in your country are almost all horrible and I am really sorry about that. Most Americans don’t really love manga, Pocky and babbling for hours on end about obscure videogame minutiae.

Translation of Goro Miyazaki’s blog 12-27-2005

Here is some more of Ged War Journal director Goro Miyazaki’s blog, in which he rather obtusely outlines the history of Studio Ghibli. As you can see from this and the last post, he’s still being vague about why his father didn’t want him to direct the film (my guess is because he’s not qualified?):

December 27 – My Father and Producer Suzuki are my Forerunners in [living] “lives that do”

The “life that does” is a life in which one has a goal and tries to achieve it.
The motivation for such a life varies from those who want fortune or fame to those who want to move people emotionally.

On the other hand, “the life that is” is a life that is not one lived having an ambition, be it for the sake of oneself or others, but a life lived satisfied with daily work.

Recently, I have gone and chosen to “do” the directing of “Ged War Journal,” but those who first come to mind as my forerunners in “lives that do” are my father, Hayao Miyazaki, and Producer (of Ged War Journal) Suzuki.

I doubt either man thought that their company would grow to encompass 170 employees when they started Ghibli Studios in 1985.
In any case, they most likely only thought “I want to make Castle in the Sky, Laputa!” (the film they were planning at the time).

However, once you makes a movie once, you are then tied by that movie’s results.

While making movies, [Ghibli] became involved with various people, the movies it made garnered social praise, and finally in April of this year the company became independent from Tokuma Shoten and the joint-stock company Studio Ghibli was born.

The president of that company did not necessarily wish for that. It came to be that Producer Suzuki was to assume that role [of president].

Translation of Goro Miyazaki’s Blog 12-26-2005

Following up on my previous effort, here is another entry in which the Ged War Journal (Gedo Senki in Japanese) director Goro Miyazaki (son of Hayao Miyazaki) talks about why he chose to go into animation:

12/26/2005 – I went and chose a “life that does”

I got some free time due to the long vacation, so I will write a little more on “lives that do and lives that are.”

Ged’s words, which explain the importance of “a life that is,” had an impact on me because I, just at that time, was trying to throw my hat into the world of animation that I had previously avoided.

What Ged was saying was not the importance of stopping where you are and thinking, but the more fundamental issue of what type of life one should choose.

Seen one way, “doing” can seem to be the verification that you are free.
However, isn’t that, in fact, making you unfree?
Ged poses that question.

Up to now I as well had thought “to do” something meant “to be free.”
However, to do something produces results and people are bound by those results.
Then, based on those results, people are to do something new.
No, they must do it.

When I considered going on to college when it came time for my high school graduation, while I had an interest in animation, I concluded that if I devoted myself to that world I could never in my life surpass my father.
So, I entered the agricultural department of Shinshu University in an attempt to enter a field as far from animation as I could.

After graduation I was employed full time at an architectural firm. After working there for almost 8 years, I suddenly got an invitation from Producer Suzuki: “Won’t you be involved in the opening of the Ghibli Museum?”
It is here that I made a big decision “to do,” but at that time I felt that a museum and animation were separate things and this would not mean that I am entering the world of animation.
However, the result of that is as you can see.

So, the lines that I quoted from Ged in my previous post, far from skipping them, I felt them as if they had happened to me. Ironically, I chose a “life that does” after being enchanted by the charms of Ged War Journal, which preaches the importance of “a life that is.”

New Ghibli Movie ‘Ged War Journal’ directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s Son despite protest from father

While we’re on the topic of linking to blogs, Kaiju Shakedown, an official blog of Variety magazine (meaning he gets paid for it, I guess), has been one of my favorites lately. I’ve always been a firm believer that close, obsessive scrutiny of a nation’s pop culture can tell one a lot about that nation’s people, so Grady Hendrix’s posts, written with that true Variety-style sarcastic wit, always entertain and inform.

So it was the Shakedown where I learned about Ghibli Studios’ latest feature “Ged War History” (English title is apparently not finalized), directed by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki’s son, Goro:

But father Miyazaki was against it! In an unsuccessful effort to find out why, I translated the first diary entry from Goro’s blog. This first appeared in the comments section of Kaiju Shakedown, but I will reproduce it here:

Introductory remarks — My father was against this

My father, Hayao Miyazaki, was against me directing “Ged War Journal” [tr: my guess at a literal translation of the movie’s title].

This may sound abrupt. However, first, I would like to make this clear.
Continue reading New Ghibli Movie ‘Ged War Journal’ directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s Son despite protest from father