Whispers on a Gentle Breeze

Xfinity/Comcast is closing its personal web pages this month. Therefore I am moving my web site to a new location:
mzephyr.altervista.org

I have updated my web site for the first time in over a year and a half. In particular I have completed the following pages for the entire manga series:
Names - all Japanese names of characters and places used in the series.
Chapter Titles - all Japanese chapter titles.
Lost in Translation - differences in graphics between the original manga and the VIZ translation.

My pre-reader returned chapter 15 to me a few weeks ago. Alas I have not had much time yet to work on preparing it for publication. The above work on my web site has actually been ready and waiting for me to move it to the official site for some time now.

Looking out the window, it appears that winter has found its way home. At least for a while.

Now I need to plan to shovel the driveway in the morning.

Missing: Winter
Color: White
Age: Two weeks
If found, please return to Massachusetts.

The final chapter of the Ranma 1/2 manga is titled "Ranma and Akane". At least, that's its title in Japanese. In the English VIZ translation, the title is "The Final Chapter". The kanji for "final chapter" does in fact appear in the Japanese - it's used in the place where the chapter number would appear, on both the chapter title page and in the table of contents.

So, VIZ basically used the chapter number as the title of the chapter in its translation. And didn't give us the real title of the chapter: Ranma and Akane.

I was going through volume 36 of the Japanese manga today (third from last volume), and was interested to see just how many times VIZ erased writing from the artwork for the translation. Sometime Japanese writing, sometimes English (which they would have to redraw after flipping the art if they wanted to keep it). Mostly this is stuff printed on clothing, so that the clothing we see in the English version is less - decorated, I suppose - than the Japanese version. But sometimes it's writing on other stuff, like chopsticks wrappers, or the front of a safe.

I suppose it was done just because it was easier. The English, at least, had to be erased when they flipped the artwork, or it would have appeared backward. So it was simpler just not to write it back in. The same of course would apply to the Japanese, but few English speakers would have realized that was backward - and there are a few places where it was left there and is in fact backward.

It should be added in VIZ's defense that the English printed on Japanese clothing often doesn't make any sense, and this is true for what appears in the manga as well. Why would Akane's dress have the word "chance" printed on the collar? And why is Ranma wearing a swimsuit which says "Yes USA" across the top? Did Takahashi-sensei model these on actual items of clothing, or did she come up with such weird choices on her own?

The biggest difference was in the yukata worn by Soun, Nodoka and Ranma at the inn during the arc where Ranma and his mother are finally reunited. In the Japanese version, those yukata are literally covered with the kanji for the inn's name. In most frames of the translated manga, VIZ simply erased this, leaving the yukata a plain white. Except - in a handful of frames, they didn't, primarily for Ranma's yukata. Naturally, in those few frames the kanji are flipped left to right.

I have given chapter 15 to my pre-reader, so she can start working on it. I have also begun work on chapter 16.

I have gone back over my first draft of chapter 15, making corrections and rephrasing some things. It is now ready for my pre-reader, as soon as she's ready to begin work on it in December.

Way back in the day, when Red Hat directly provided a free version of Linux for personal use, I used their product and also used the Gnome desktop, which I preferred to KDE. When Red Hat ceased to provide this, I chose to switch to Suse, and later OpenSuse, for which I found it easier to use KDE instead of Gnome. I no longer remember why.

In June 2011, five months ago, I made the switch to Fedora 15, for which Gnome was the default, which made me happy. It turned out to be Gnome version 3, which is radically different from the Gnome I knew back in the day. Still, I was willing to give it a try - who knew, it might turn out to be an improvement once I adapted. To be fair, I'd keep at it for a while.

Five months later, enough is enough. I don't know who was responsible for the redesign from Gnome 2 to Gnome 3, but whoever they are, they ought to be hauled off and locked up somewhere where they can never again wreck what used to be a good product. It's not that Gnome 3 is unusable, I was certainly able to use it. But there are too many ways in which it provides a poorer user interface then even what was available in Gnome 2, let alone other desktops which have continued to advance.

So I'm switching over to KDE. Gnome development team, sorry, I tried, but you've designed a product with which I'm just no longer willing to put up.

VIZ initially got the name of Konatsu's step mother wrong, giving it at "Kote". Later on they write it in the correct form of "Kotetsu". The problem was probably that in the initial introduction her name was spelled in hiragana, without kanji, and a "chan" honorific was added, so her name is shown at that point as こてつちゃん (kotetsuchan). This is pretty easy to mistake for こてっちゃん (kotecchan) where instead of a "tsu" there is a character doubling the following consonant, as in Ucchan. However, later on her name is shown in kanji as 小鉄 without an honorific, and with the furigana こてつ, making the spelling clear, and VIZ writes her name correctly at that point. The name, by the way, means "little iron." Also, both Konatsu, his stepmother, and both of his stepsisters have names which start with the kanji 小 for "little."