Help with strange manga font

Japanese Language Reading
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This is from 銃夢 錆びた天使

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I’m having difficulty figuring out what the red circled kanji is. I mean I know 様, but not the kanji that precedes it. I’m also confused as to why the furigana for both characters is different in the two panels. I might just chalk it up as someone’s name, but that someone hasn’t appeared yet in the story (this is a bit into Chapter 3) I can’t find that kanji via radical lookup, and my kanji OCR app which is using Google’s ML vision thinks it’s 青

Any help is much appreciated.

As an aside, is it kosher to post small snippets of copyrighted material here a la the image above? Is this considered fair use? If not I’ll certainly not do this again. Just wondering what the general practice is.

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It’s 貴様, an insult, not a name. :slight_smile: (the first time he says it he’s saying the English word “You” in an angry way, which may have contributed to the confusion – the kanji clarify his intention. The usual reading is きさま)

It’s fine!

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Aw, beat me to it.

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I’m not a legal expert, but I’d say it’s fine. We do this all the time in book clubs, so I wouldn’t worry about small snippets like this.

It’s 貴様 (きさま), which happens to mean “you”, hence why the other reading given is ユー. (No idea why the author did that though.)

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Implying that they could be saying it in English? Idk.

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Perhaps, yeah.

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Also, OP, in instances where you know the furigana but not the kanji, you can look it up in a dictionary.

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You guys are awesome! Would’ve taken forever for me to figure this out on my own. Thanks!

My OCR app has no problem recognizing 貴 when drawn in a reasonable font. :slight_smile: jisho.org says I’ll learn it on WK level 34. Better go do those 15 reviews I have sitting right now…

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Well now I just feel stupid. :crazy_face:

I should have known that but I think the two different instances of furigana threw me for a loop.

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Just for info, that font kind of mimics a stone engraved style. Not a real seal or bronze style, because the kanji have modern shapes, but still it gives some feeling of “ancient” and “monumental”.

By seeing that caption, I imagine the character having a very grave, strong and sepulchral voice.

It is a similar to how “Old English” font style is sometimes used.

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In the US, yes, under the Fair Use Doctrine, it is perfectly legal.
Not only because it is a snipet but due to its educational purpose.
https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html

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This is very interesting. The character is マカク from the original manga that the western movie Alita:Battle Angel was based upon. That font is used whenever he is speaking.

According his bio at the beginning of the book, he eats/drinks people’s brains (you learn later this where he gets his endorphins) and is a brutal cyborg.

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Being kosher has nothing to do with copyrights:

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Kosher is also used as a slang to denote “something that is permissible”.

Then, moving beyond the confines of food, any action can be informally referred to as treif . This mirrors the use of the word “kosher,” which literally means “fit,” to refer more broadly to anything that is aboveboard or legit.

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3947400/jewish/What-Does-Treif-Mean.htm

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It’s English slang for “is it ok”. If it’s offensive to the Jewish community I won’t use it, but it has common usage as described.

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It is not offensive, we use it all the time in everyday talk. “Is the proof of this theorem kosher?”, etc… The link I posted above is from an orthodox (Jewish) organization.

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