本好きの下剋上: Volume 4+ discussion thread

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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The english version does use Justus (I believe there is no german version).
I think that’s the name that got changed the most though. ゲオルギーネ was tough for me to get used to, since I pronounced “Georgine” quite differently in my head :sweat_smile:

I actually found that really annoying while reading the english version. There are so many names that have some sort of connection to a german word - and while that’s fine or even useful in some regards (I love how all the “magic spells” that are literally just shouting the german word for the objects you want to summon), it also made some scenes unintentionally funny.
Like most of the gods names. I burst out laughing when ライデンシャフト (= “Leidenschaft” = ger for passion) comes up. Or エーヴィリーベ (= “Ewigeliebe” = literally just “ewige Liebe”, meaning eternal love written as one word).
I think the worst for me was this one character called グラウザム or sth like that. I believe he appears already in volume 6?

The english version writes the name as “Grausam”. That is just the german word for “cruelty”.
… Yeah, definitely not a villain right there :roll_eyes:

Interestingly, I couldn’t make those connections as easily with the japanese Katakana spelling. (well, except for all the weapon summoning)

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Yeah, I had lots of trouble with some names. I had to look at the Japanese wiki to decipher フリュートレーネ, the goddess of water. I thought it would be something like Flut (flood) + Regen (rain), but apparently it’s Frühling (spring) + Träne (tear). Btw, don’t look up the names for the god of light and god of darkness. I managed to spoil myself a bit in a way I don’t really understand yet. It’s probably some minor stuff, but you never know.

If it ever gets a German version, I wonder what they’ll do with the names. Will they just name the gods Patience, Passion, etc in English or something?

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Oh wow, yeah, I would never have guessed. In fact, I just gave up trying to find the original version of most names.
I noticed immediately that “spell” names are just the words, which made me confused when (volume 25? ish extremely minor spoiler) マイン is happy to finally learn the spell to make a crown… and it’s just the word… so I wondered if, in universe, they speak a different language so that the spells are meaningless to them? But then where do the spells come from?

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I got really confused about the spells as well.

Spoiler volume 19

When ボニファティウス is trying to create the 水鉄砲, he is “mispronouncing” it. So… did ローゼマイン create a spell that is universal for everyone else? And everyone has to match her (Japanese) pronunciation?
At first, I thought the word itself didn’t matter, as long as the person is associating the word with the object they are imagining. But if that was the case, the pronunciation of 水鉄砲 wouldn’t have mattered :thinking:

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Yes, she did, and yes, they both need to imagine the object and use the correct word, but otherwise can use the created spell. Note that there is some leeway on the image you are making, which is why フェルディナンド can make an improved version.

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@seanblue Are you still on arc 3? :slight_smile:

image

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I honestly forgot there was a poll. :slight_smile:

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Book 13 is good so far. Only about a third of the way done. Lots of new characters (as expected with any arc change) so it’s a bit overwhelming, but not too bad.

One random comment about how much I hate the word 自分 (conversation between two main characters but no real spoilers)

Ferdinand was talking to Main about all the stuff he was making her learn/do. And then he was like “it’s all for 自分’s sake”. And I’m like, “I hate 自分 so much, I always have to stop and think about who it’s referring to”. Finally I decided he was saying it was for Main’s sake, which I thought made sense in the context.

Well, turns out Main also thought that he meant it was for her sake, but actually Ferdinand intentionally used that ambiguous phrasing so that she’d think that, while he actually meant it was for his own sake! Gah! Here I was just worried that my ability to pick up who 自分 refers to was lacking, but now I also have to worry about situations where it’s legitimately ambiguous!

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I finished book 13! I wouldn’t go so far as saying it’s my favorite book in the series so far, but it was hands down the best of any of the arc-openers (books 1, 4, 8, 13 so far). Easy 5/5 for me, which I’d only given to books 6, 7, and 10 until now.

Book 13 spoilers

This volume was so much fun! It was a really cool change of scenery and dynamics. It’s also funny how the “nothing happens” season (aka winter) is now the season where everything happens. I love how Main was like “Oh I can’t go to the library until I pass all my courses? Guess I’ll pass them all in the first week! And I’ll torture all the other first years while I’m at it!”. I’m actually surprised by how little coursework there is, but I guess it’s always harder for the 下・中貴族, especially for the practical courses, and I suppose a big focus is the social aspect anyway. In any case, fine with me (for now at least) since I’m not reading the series to experience Harry Potter.

The strengthening bands were a pretty big plot convenience, but whatever. At least they had some downsides to balance it out a bit. Also, I still don’t know who half the new characters are, but hopefully that gets better over time. The シュタープ seems really versatile so far. I’m predicting that Main will use it as a way of showing a physical model for all her inventions in place of drawing rough sketches. That would be really convenient! Also the little rabbit library helpers are super cute! I was wondering what that was about from the cover, but the way it turned out made sense. Main does have a habit of causing weird things to happen when she prays!

This might also be the first book in the series where the plot clearly wasn’t done. As in, the break the author found to publish this volume was good enough, but given that there wasn’t much of a climax and even the epilogue this time around was pointless, more than usual it showed how it was just a web published series without predetermined endings. Well you know what this means…

On to book 14!

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volume 13

It’s all ヴィルフリート’s fault, though. :rofl:

I do not remember the details, but at the very least, I add no problem after a volume or two.

Also, it’s so funny that the walking distance to get it is based on your magic… and she completely blows up the scale. Same with the class on magic dyeing (? I wonder what the official translation did with 染める) and the class on magic concentration…

Yes… that becomes more and more frequent in later volumes too…

Indeed!

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Vol 13

I had to double check who ブリュンヒルデ was for several volumes :joy: I just couldn’t remember. And after rereading some of the earlier books, I noticed ハルトムート was one of the kids that introduced themselves in the winter playroom back in volume 10 :thinking: Though his name didn’t stick for me until volume 14.
I also struggled with some of her temple attendants. They have different personalities, but I still don’t know whether モニカ or ニコラ is the one with pigtails :sweat_smile:

It was always translated as “dyeing”. So you would dye something with your mana. Though I don’t remember there being a specific course about it – that was called “Mana Control” or something, I think :thinking:

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13

That’s such a cheap way out :rofl: While to dye is the most common meaning for 染める, it also have the meaning (among others):

２ 光などが、あたりの色を変える。ある色にする。「紅葉が照り輝くように野山を―・める」「夕日が家々の白壁を赤く―・めている」

which I feel is the most relevant here. However, in English, I feel like to dye is much more specific. According to a quick search, it seems the definition always implies the use of a specific liquid. Although, I guess magic is kinda liquid-like :thinking: Except when you compress it so much that it becomes solid.

… so you do remember it :joy: Yes, that’s the one. It is called 魔力の扱い in Japanese.
The class on magic concentration (compression?) is 魔力圧縮 in Japanese.

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About choice of translation,

Summary

I read some part in English and one thing that confused me is that 魔石 are called “feystone”. Is it an original name from the English translation or does this “fey” name appear somewhere in the Japanese and I missed it?

The translation of 本好き is really interesting by the way. It’s very localized and enjoyable. But when I compare to the original I’m constantly confused if I’m missing small nuance in the Japanese that get exaggerated in English or if the translator add things here and there to make it more fun.

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Fey is an English word, so, yes, it doesn’t appear in the Japanese version.
But that’s an interesting translation for 魔石 indeed!

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Still vol 13

Wait… Do the stones actually change color when they are being dyed? :open_mouth: I guess depending on your attributes, the color of the stone for your highbeast is a bit different… Does that count for all stones you are dyeing? How have I never made that connection?? :joy: I thought it was some kind of aura thing.

Haha got me there! I remember the course (that’s when ローゼマイン pulverizes several 魔石, right?), just not if it had a specific name.
Since I liked this volume a lot, I ended up rereading it a bunch while waiting for volume 14 to release. I remember it a lot better than the other volumes :grin:

They call it compression :+1:

I don’t remember it coming up in the Jp version, but that’s how 魔 got generally translated. So 魔獣 is a “feybeast” and 魔石 is a “feystone”.
Another thing I found interesting about the translation are the 上級、中級、下級貴族.
In english those were translated as “arch, med, laynoble”. Those feel more like “fantasy terminology” to me than the quite literal Japanese equivalent.
The 領主 was called “archduke”… I guess “duke” on its own isn’t enough? :joy:

Hmm… I haven´t read every volume in both languages, but I can think of maybe one or two situations were I liked the translation more. Otherwise, I found the Japanese to be a lot clearer – especially in conveying social status through the way characters are speaking.
For example:

vol 9

There is a scene were those two orphans are speaking to ローゼマイン and フェルディナンド goes “what crude language…” while in English their wording was perfectly polite.

vol 5

When マイン wants to get ヴィルマ to be her attendant, there is a line like “an attendant, as the name implies, needs to stay with their master at all times” and I thought for a moment my English was failing me. That makes a lot more sense if the word is 側仕え.

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Actually, should I blur some of that? Some of those terms don’t come up until after volume 4, I believe :thinking:
Edit: blurred it just in case (Isn’t much of a spoiler though :slightly_smiling_face:)

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Vol 13 cont.

I’m not 100% sure. I think it’s the case for most stones, but I can think of at least one exception… although I’m not sure it’s a regular stone. (It could just be a magical object, like the, err, bird things for voice messaging, which are always yellow.

Yes, that’s the one. Turns out (if I remember correctly) that they were being melted away just by the raw magic energy that is leaking from her strength bands. Well, and even after that, by the fact that ローゼマイン never had to control herself to not break things :joy: Again, she is just off the charts (and she is still growing up, haha)

Instead of waiting for releases, I just went ahead and read the web novel version :crazy_face: There have been some small adjustments to the plot, though, so it’s like I know the future from a parallel universe. That does help reading the official release remain fun.

Oh, that’s an interesting translation. I guess the arch for the last one is just to match the pattern they established?

Vol 5

To be fair, attendant, as an adjective, means “accompanying”, which does match okay-ish. They tried their best. :joy:

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Hey, y’all, I got busy and stopped poking around the forums for a good while. I’ve been reading through about one of these books a month and I’m on book 5 now. I’ll try to pop on here from time to time. :star:

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Thanks ! It thought I could have missed an explanation like the technical name is フェーストーン but everybody just call them 魔石 or something like that. Glad to know it’s just an interesting choice of the English version. Also I didn’t know “fey” is an actual English word !

I really like the English translation so far, but when comparing with the original I was a bit surprised how much change there are. I knew that going from Japanese to English require to make a lot of change to make it sound natural, just didn’t expected that much.

I have a few notes here and there of things that I found interesting.

Contain Big spoiler for volume 7

Summary

Basically almost all hedge words are removed and everything seems a bit more bombastic in the English version.

For example:

聖典に載っていた分から考えると、かなり端折られているが、暗記しているようだ。
It was fairly abridged compared to what was written in the bible, but he definitively had it memorized

“よう” turning into “definitively” kind of sums up the entire translation process :laughing:

This one is also interesting. Sylvester talking about Ferdinand thinking of an education plan for Maine.

あの考え込む姿は見慣れている。 教育計画作成中でフェルディナンドの熱血指導が行われる前触れだ。

The joke is not explicitly stated but of course the readers can imagine that getting a 熱血指導 from Ferdinand is scary. The English translation make it very explicit. (and a bit funnier imho)

That was his thinking pose—something I was all too familiar with, and a sign that he was in the middle of constructing a brutal education plan that he would enforce on Rozemyne without a shred of mercy.

But sometimes, removing hedge words go a bit too far for my taste. This scene is after the big showdown of volume 7, Maine fought against Count Bindewald, got almost executed because she went against a Noble, but was saved at the last minute by Sylvester adopting her. Sylvester, Ferdinand and Karstedt are finally alone.

Ferdinand let out a slow sigh. “And so, our plan worked. We’ve accomplished our goals.”

I read this passage for the first time in English, and wow, what a bombshell, I was a bit shocked. So it was Ferdinand doing all along!? “our plan worked” !? Sound a bit sinister, and also cold even by Ferdinand standard, because just a moment ago it was a huge mess and Maine almost died.

But then reading the Japanese version, I get a much more fuzzier impression.

フェルディナンドがゆっくりと息を吐き出した。 「何とか目的は果たせたようだな」

何とか…よう… Sounds to me more like “Phew, look like we got what we wanted somehow :sweat_smile:” than “Our plan worked. We’ve accomplished our goals :sunglasses:”

Sylvester speech pattern is also quite interesting in English. They made him make lots of little joke, while in Japanese he can sound a bit childish at time, but otherwise fairly normal?

呼びつければよかろう。領主自ら下町に行く必要がどこにある!?
嫌だ。 面白くない。 それに私はあのご飯が食べたいのだ

嫌だ。 面白くない. Not how an archduke should talk. The English version drop it and make a joke instead:

“Just summon him here. What need is there for the archduke himself to visit the lower city?!”
“Oh, there’s a big need, and that need is located in my stomach. I’m gonna eat that food no matter what.”

This one is also striking. Sylvester is lamenting that he can’t even walk in his own city without 建前.

建前がなければ、自分の街さえ自由に歩けないとは、領主などなるものではない。 面倒くさいが、建前があれば良いのだろう。

Quite plain and factual to me. But the English version spiced it up so much it’s actually a “popular highlight” on kindle.

Don’t become an archduke, kids. You can’t even walk through your own city without needing a thousand layers of excuses and an elaborate plot. It’s a pain, but I probably should think of a good reason for this.

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I might do that too :grimacing: I am almost done with volume 28, and it seems like the actual rescue wont happen until the next volume. That’s the worst cliffhanger!

That makes me curious though. Would you say that those changes made the story better?

I also just realized that I read through all of arc 5 without ever posting about it in this thread. Whoops :sweat_smile:
I might read through your older posts about the volumes later. I remember you speaking about the cover of vol 28 and… Yep, wth were they thinking :roll_eyes:
Though to be fair, I didn’t get spoiled since I didn’t understand it just from looking at it, it simply left me utterly confused :joy:

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